LEADSOM IS NEW CONTENDER May’s old rival waits in the wings to knife her in the back
IT is not David Davis or Boris Johnson that Theresa May fears the most. It’s her old rival Andrea Leadsom.
The PM knows what DD and Boris are up to. The Brexit Secretary and Foreign Secretary want her job and make no secret of it.
Mrs Leadsom is a stealth fighter. If she is gathering support to launch a second bid to oust her in a leadership contest, she is going about it quietly.
So quietly, Mrs May’s early warning system in the Tory whips office is struggling to pick it up on their radar.
A top Tory source told the Sunday People the Commons leader has not given up on her No10 ambitions.
The source added: “Don’t write off Andrea. If the PM goes down, she’s waiting in the wings to pounce.
“She won’t launch a challenge herself but she’ll be in there if there is one.”
The Prime Minister is now getting to know what it must have felt to be Julius Caesar. The knives are out for her. The Roman dictator was warned he would meet a sticky end on the Ides of March in 44BC.
And sure enough, at a meeting of the senate on that day, March 15, 60 conspirators assassinated him.
But he was surprised at his old friend Brutus being one of them. Fast forward 2,000 years and for Brutus, read Andrea Leadsom – who has her own grievances with the PM.
Conservative Party darling Boris Johnson is now wounded after a series of gaffes, the latest at the Tory conference in Manchester last week when he suggested Sirte in Libya could become another Dubai once the dead bodies were cleared red away.
His audiencedience took a sharp intake of breath reath at the tastelessness of thehe remark and Tory MPs calledd for his sacking.
But Britain’s itain’s top diplomat is incapablele of diplomacy. On a trip to Myanmar, he was ticked offf by the UK ambassador for inappropriately nappropriately reciting Rudyard ard Kipling in praise of British colonialism.
Brexit Secretary David Davis hass his supporters but ut detractors say he is t he only Cabinet minister who can swagger sitting down. They believe he thinks too much of himself and would be even more insufferable in the top job.
That gives Mrs Leadsom the chance to wave her strong Brexit credentials and come through the middle as a compromise candidate.
Imploded
Mrs Leadsom, 54, received the support of 66 MPs and came second to Mrs May in the first round of voting in the July 2016 leadership battle. But after widespread r revulsion at comments made by the mother of three ab about Mrs May being child childless, her campaign implo imploded. On becomi becoming PM, Mrs May madema Mrs Leadsom Envir Environment Secretary but d demoted her to Leader of the House in this yea year’s June reshuffle. In an interviewinterv with the UK edition of AmericanA websitewe Bu Business