Tough-talking Theresa: I had the balls to call election!

THERESA May came out fighting last night and defended her decision to call a snap election, declaring she ‘had the balls’ to ask Britons who they wanted in charge.

Raising the prospect of a coalition of chaos in six days, with Jeremy Corbyn having to answer to Nicola Sturgeon and the Lib Dems, Mrs May warned that only she could deliver Brexit.

She said it would let her ‘build a more prosperous, stronger and fairer Britain’.

She said: ‘If Jeremy Corbyn was to get into No10, he’d be propped up by the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Nationalists. You would have Diane Abbott who can’t add up sitting around the Cabinet table, John McDonnell who is a Marxist, Nicola Sturgeon who wants to break our country up and Tim Farron who wants to take us back into the EU – the direct opposite of what the British people want.’

Repeatedly challenged over her decision to call an election, she argued she had done it for the benefit of the country.

Accused by an angry male audience member of calling an election for her ‘own political gain’, Mrs May said: ‘It would have been the easiest thing in the world for me... to say the next election is not until 2020, it’s a good job, I enjoy doing this job. I could have stayed on... for another couple of years and not called an election.’

But jabbing her finger, she added: ‘I had the balls to call an election.’

Mrs May appeared relaxed as she was grilled by the audience during the BBC Question Time special from York.

At the start of the 90-minute programme, Abigail Eatock – chairman of Ukip’s youth wing at York University – asked: ‘Why should the public trust anything you say or any of your policies when you have a known track record of broken promises and backtracking?’ Mrs May said that as Home Secretary she promised to deal with extremist hate preachers, adding: ‘I excluded more than any home secretary before me.

‘I said I would be tough on crime, and I would ensure our police and security services had the powers they need to do their job, and I gave them those... and made sure we kept the records of criminals and terrorists on the DNA database – whereas Diane Abbott wants to wipe them clean.’

She insisted she was determined to get the country’s exit from the EU right, adding: ‘I am optimistic for this country, but... we must deliver on the will of the British people and make a success of it.

She wanted to get a good free trade agreement, and see ‘how we can build a more prosperous, stronger and fairer Britain’. Mrs May said she had to make it clear the country would not accept a bad deal.

But she said Mr Corbyn was willing to take ‘the worst possible deal at the highest price’. The PM defended taking tough decisions in her manifesto, including cutting Winter Fuel Payments for the wealthy. Contrasting her prudent stance with Mr Corbyn’s, she said: ‘There isn’t a magic money tree we can shake to provide everything we want.’

She showed compassion when a woman with sight and mental health problems became upset about her work capability assessment, telling the audience member: ‘I’m not going to make any excuses for the experience you had. We do look at improving how that assessment is taking place.’

When a Tory voter asked why £4million of taxpayers’ money had gone to North Korea in international aid, she said she was determined to reform aid programmes to ensure money was used well.

The PM also made an impassioned defence of her plans to create a new generation of grammar schools, but added: ‘We will also ensure there is a fairer distribution of school funding. At the moment, some schools get twice as much money per pupil than schools in other parts of the country.’

‘I am optimistic for this country’