May’s relaunch gatecrashed by white-bearded rejoicing

On the wall of the room where Theresa May had chosen to relaunch her premiership was a mural. It had been painted in the late 18th century, and depicted a scene from Ancient Greece – yet something about it seemed strangely topical. Irresistibly, the eye was drawn to a particular image: that of a triumphant old man with a white beard, being carried shoulder-high by a crowd of young admirers.

The scene did not feature a beleaguered middle-aged woman in leopard-print heels sobbing beside a heap of placards marked “STRONG AND STABLE”, but otherwise, it could hardly have felt more apt.

The mural was Crowning the Victors at Olympia by James Barry, on display at the Royal Society of Arts in London, and the triumphant old man with a white beard was Diagoras of Rhodes: a boxer celebrating his success at the Olympic Games. According to legend, Diagoras was revered by supporters for his decency, humbleness and spotless integrity. Uncanny, isn’t it?

If disciples of Jeremy Corbyn are tempted to interpret this as an omen, however, I should perhaps warn them that mere moments after the scene in the mural – the crowning triumph of his career – Diagoras dropped dead.

Anyway. Back to the

‘Mrs May shot him a faintly murderous smile’

present day, and Theresa May’s purported relaunch. I say purported, because – aside from a lone paragraph urging rival parties to work with her for the greater good, and an admission that the election result “was not what I wanted” – we got little more than a run-ofthe-mill drone of a speech responding to a report on the future of the workplace. Contrary to expectation, Mrs May had nothing to say about her position as Prime Minister, or about the soul-searching she must have undergone since her humiliation last month, or about how she aimed to revive faith in her rickety leadership. Instead, the speech was aridly impersonal. It was almost as if the last five weeks hadn’t happened.

At the end, she made a token gesture towards rallying her party. “At this critical time in our history,” she recited, “we can either be timid or we can be bold.” Of the two, I assume she proposes to be bold, but no details were forthcoming about how she intended to go about it, particularly now that the few bold ideas in her manifesto have been abandoned.

After Mrs May had finished her speech, ITV’S Robert Peston tried to nudge her into broaching the subject we’d assumed she was here to talk about. “Have recent events in your own life,” he asked, “made you slightly more sympathetic to people in insecure employment?”

Mrs May shot him a faintly murderous smile, but did not comment. Up on the wall, the old man with the white beard continued to rejoice.