I doubt our PM is sleeping as soundly as she was a year ago

CAN Theresa May and her wobbly, minority government survive the entire length of a full Parliament, with its cabinet members squabbling like schoolchildren in the playground?

On the face of it, such an achievement seems an impossibility, given the potholes and obstacles that lie in the path ahead. Chief among these is the Brexit Bill, which came under a barrage of criticism within minutes of its publication last week.

If the Government were defeated on the second reading of this measure, that would surely bring about the collapse of the May administration and probably force a general election.

And given the upward surge of Labour, the unpredicted popularity of Jeremy Corbyn, and the current state of the Tories’ disarray, that is a distinct possibility. A general election is the last thing Theresa May wants.

The full panoply of the Opposition parties – with the exception, of course, of the DUP, would be ranged against the Government – plus some of her disloyal backbenchers.

The cabinet is in an unprecedented state of disarray, with malcontent members aiming their poison darts at Chancellor Philip Hammond. He has found himself in the no less unprecedented situation of having to tell his cabinet critics to shut up and get on with their jobs.

A cabinet is supposed to display collective agreement and not be a hotbed of vicious feuding.

And added to this daunting scenario is the very real fear that a group of disloyal and malcontent antiBrexit Conservative MPs could join the opposition parties and scupper this government for good over the Brexit Bill.

Labour’s Jim Callaghan used to say of his own premiership that he seemed to be constantly walking on a tightrope. That is precisely the perilous position in which Theresa May finds herself today. This issue will bedevil her for as long as she remains in power. This dire situation is not eased by clarion calls from some quarters that the Tory Party chairman Patrick McLoughlin should be removed from office. The charge against him is that he was practically invisible during the disastrous general election campaign.

But it may well have been that the expensive and useless “experts” who were brought in from outside to advise on the Tory campaign ordered that he – along with other cabinet ministers – should lie low.

A catastrophic mistake, but not one of McLoughlin’s doing.

The Prime Minister would be wise to ignore these demands and to keep McLoughlin in his job. The Conservative Party is already in a parlous enough state, and certainly does not need any further disruption to add to its overload of woes.

However, I think May has the spirit and the political will to keep marching forward. But I doubt whether she is sleeping as soundly as she was a year ago.