Gulf Today

IT MAYBE A YEAR TO FORGET FOR THERESA MAY

- BY LOUIS STAPLES

It is likely that 2017 is a year that Prime Minister Theresa May would rather forget. As her premiershi­p slowly disintegra­tes like a choc ice left out in the sun on a hot summer’s day, all that talk of “stability” and “crushing the saboteurs” feels like a distant memory.

Personally I am shocked by May’s impending doom, because she has always shown such integrity. You mean to tell me that a Home Secretary who sent LGBT+ asylum seekers back to violently homophobic countries and advised them to “act straight” isn’t the kind of leader that “global Britain” needs? Who could have predicted that bribing the DUP with £1bn, after telling public sector workers who haven’t had a pay rise in eight years that there’s “no magic money tree”, wouldn’t go down well?

May has always stood up in the face of injustice. When she condemned the National Trust for axing an Easter egg hunt, but stayed silent when Donald Trump took two days to distance himself from white supremacis­ts, it was clear she had her priorities straight. When she didn’t announce any policies for the irst two weeks of her general election campaign,thenannoun­cedhersupp­ortfor lifting the ban on fox hunting, it showed she really understood the electorate.

But somewhere in between holding hands with the orange overlord himself and failing to meet survivors of the Grenfell Tower ire on her irst visit to the site, May’s approval rating began to plummet.

But let’s not forget the brief moments of triumph. For instance, with a new cabinet minister being appointed every week, May is working wonders for employment statistics. In fact, in a revolution­ary new scheme, she is even letting people appoint themselves to prominent positions without any relevant qualiicati­ons, like her new Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson. Last week over 20,000 people watched a live feed of Priti Patel’s plane journey home to resign as Internatio­nal Developmen­t Secretary, so May might have inally convinced someone that airport expansion is a good idea.

As her government becomes a neverendin­g episode of The Apprentice, it is good to see that Michael Gove and Boris Johnson are stepping up to the plate. They have always had the interests of Britain at heart. Gove’s attempt to slide the knife out of Boris’s back by further endangerin­g Nazanin Zaghari-ratcliffe’s liberty is just the kind of thinking we need.

Today former cabinet minister Nicky Morgan has called May “tone-deaf and tin-eared”, while 40 of her own MPS are reportedly preparing to call for her resignatio­n. With this many Tories lining up to criticise their leader, they look more like the opposition than a credible government.

Yet despite the vultures circling and the hailstorm of negative news, Maybot clings on to short-circuit another day. When she irst stood on the steps of Downing Street as Prime Minister, few could have predicted that May would be “just about managing” to hold her government together so early on. As the Tories wait for a viable successor to emerge, May remains one scandal away from oblivion. Trapped in ofice but no longer in power.

But it could be worse. At least we didn’t let Ed Miliband and his bacon sandwich anywhere near Downing Street. Now that would have been chaos.

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