‘Toxic’ May: I’m no quitter & I’ll fight the next election
Philippa’s blunt message to May
THERESA May last night vowed to lead the Tories into the next election, despite surrendering her party’s Commons majority less than three months ago.
The defiant PM spoke out amid claims she is toxic and should step down in August 2019 – five months after Brexit’s due date.
Embarking on a trade mission to Japan, she insisted: “There’s been an awful lot of speculation about my future, which has no basis in it whatsoever. I’m in this for the long term. There’s a real job to be done in the United Kingdom.”
Asked directly if she wanted to fight the next election, expected in 2022, Mrs May simply replied: “Yes.”
Her remarks in a series of TV interviews will come as a blow to party plotters and risk triggering more infighting.
Speaking to journalists on board her RAF Voyager plane, Mrs May said she had listened to voters since the election, but believed they had supported her to push ahead with Brexit.
She added: “What me and my Government are about is not just delivering on Brexit, we are delivering a brighter future for the UK.”
And she took a swipe at the Mirror – apparently blaming us for the election debacle after we exposed her hated plan to bring back foxhunting. Asked what she learned from June 8, she laughed ruefully: “You’re not going to ask me about fox-hunting again, are you?”
After arriving in Japan, the Prime Minister took part in a traditional tea-drinking ceremony as she met her opposite number Shinzo Abe in Kyoto. Theresa May has suggested post-Brexit Britain could simply copy trade deals the EU has made with the rest of the world – rather than negotiating specialised arrangements.
A NURSE who was a schoolmate of Theresa May has told her to start respecting her profession – and paying it properly.
Philippa Morrison, 62, was two years above the Prime Minister at Holton Park Grammar School in Wheatley, Oxfordshire.
The grandmother-of-four, a nurse for more than four decades, blames Mrs May’s Tories for driving her colleagues to use food banks.
Newly qualified nurses now earn an average £23,000. And a staffing crisis looms as 40,000 NHS posts are currently vacant in England.
Philippa said: “If I could say one thing to my old classmate, the Prime Minister, it would be we are demoralised and devalued. We don’t feel the respect is there.
PROBLEM
“Theresa knows nurses don’t want to strike. We are nurturers. She should let us do that without having to rely on food banks.
“I don’t want to attack Theresa but we are in this situation because of the Government and they need to sort it out.”
Philippa, of Bournemouth, Dorset, yesterday staged a onewoman protest in Trafalgar Square.
She said her young colleagues in the lung unit at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital deserve better, adding: “The girls are in their 20s and they are amazing.
“They have degrees and they are being paid a pittance and because of the low pay and lack of recruitment, we are getting fewer people.
“Someone has got to stand up and say the problem will be tackled. Nurses need to be valued.”
Philippa is also backing the Royal College of Nursing’s Scrap the Cap rally next Wednesday. The 1% pay cap from 2010 means wages are now down 14% in real terms.
RCN general secretary Janet Davies said: “Nurses feel undervalued and the pay cap means they work tirelessly but are barely able to make ends meet. Philippa is one of thousands demanding change.”