Upbeat May sends out positive messages

From Ice Queen to Dancing Queen: Theresa May sashayed on to the stage in Birmingham yesterday to confound all talk of a beleaguered Prime Minister in a desperate fight for her job. The dance was a reprise of her “African jitterbug” moment that recently invited much mocking. It demonstrated a lighter, self-deprecating side to the Prime Minister that has never been especially obvious.

It also helped to lift Tory spirits after what has been a somewhat torpid party conference, in the main hall at least, and laid the ghost of last year’s calamitous speech when Mrs May lost her voice temporarily. There were some signs of an incipient cold yesterday but her speech to the Conservative conference went without a hitch and was confident, upbeat, defiant and unapologetic. Amid the maelstrom of Brexit swirling through the fringes in Birmingham this week, with Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary, making the most noise, Mrs May has kept her nerve and her cool.

She is aware, as are most of her party’s MPS, that this week’s gathering was always going to be something of a sideshow to the main event that is about to unfold. With the party conference season over and the Commons soon to return, the period between now and Christmas promises to be one of the most tempestuous in recent British political history as Mrs May seeks to land a Brexit deal with the EU and then tries to get it through Parliament.

To that end, the content of her speech yesterday mattered less than the manner of its delivery, which was fortunate since it contained precious few announcements. She restated her ambition to get more houses built and councils will be able to borrow more in an attempt to unlock the system.

Despite signs that Philip Hammond wanted the fuel duty freeze to be lifted, Mrs May said it would remain in place, further limiting the Chancellor’s room for manoeuvre in his autumn Budget when he is looking to increase funding for the NHS. But lower fuel prices help economic activity and boost growth, off-setting the “cost” to the Exchequer.

Mrs May made a direct pitch to Labour voters by promising an end to austerity now that annual borrowing is back to about the same proportion of GDP it was before the financial crash. Balancing the books was not an end in itself, she said, and public services could look forward to more money in the years to come. It is important, however, that the opportunity to reform the public sector is not lost in an arms race with Labour to spend more.

In a highly effective passage, she took on the idea that the Conservatives are exclusive and Labour, despite all the evidence to the contrary, is the party of opportunity for all. Not only have the Tories produced two female PMS, the Home Secretary is a second generation immigrant, the leader of the Scottish Tories is a pregnant lesbian about to marry her partner under a legal change introduced by the Conservatives, and a Windrush generation Tory whose family emigrated from the Caribbean is the candidate for mayor of London. Labour, run by ageing white men and ex-public school Marxists, has a nerve to claim this political territory as its own.

What Mrs May needed to show above all were the qualities of steeliness and leadership which she will require in abundance over the next few months. For now, the party hierarchy has rallied behind her. Whatever the differing views about Mrs May’s approach to Brexit, removing her just as she is about to embark on the most critical stage of the negotiations – as MP James Duddridge suggested yesterday – would be lunacy and isn’t going to happen.

She is sticking with her Chequers plan, or a variant of it – though she did not mention it by name in her speech. She says she seeks an agreement in the national interest which eases the concerns of businesses about trade blockages while ensuring that there is no hard border in Ireland and amicable relations continue between the UK and the EU.

Many still question whether this is possible without causing a parliamentary meltdown or the collapse of her Government; but she is determined to give it a shot and we cannot ask for more than that. Her message to the hardline Brexiteers like Mr Johnson was that, if they did not get behind her, they risked losing Brexit altogether, with the options of another referendum or a general election that Labour could win if the Government is beaten.

Mrs May, who has always struggled as Prime Minister to make a positive case for a Brexit decision she did not support, was much more upbeat about the country’s prospects outside the EU, whether or not there is an orderly departure, and she is right to be so. The future of the UK was in our hands, she said. As to her own future, the next three months will determine her fate.

Mrs May kept her nerve and her cool... the content of her speech mattered less than its delivery

She took on the idea that the Tories are exclusive and that Labour is the party of opportunity for all