Whatever you think of Boris, he takes risks. Mrs May needs to do the same

The PM has already lost her majority. What more does she have to lose before she stops playing safe?

Westminster politicians and pundits are often rightly criticised for focusing too much on personalities and not on policies. Sometimes, though, a government’s activities really are driven by personalities – or by the lack thereof. It’s safe to say that few people really know Theresa May. She’s so shy that she gives little away. There are plenty of people angry with her for botching the general election. Increasingly, though, the dominant feeling about her in Westminster isn’t anger, but pity.

I felt sorry for her yesterday. It was her 61st birthday and there she was, on Andrew Marr’s orange sofa. He asked whether she has a lack of authority over her Cabinet. “What I have,” she said unconvincingly, “is a Cabinet that is united.”

Meanwhile, the papers were full of vitriol put about by “friends” of Boris Johnson, suggesting that the Conservative Party is on the cusp of a coup and reporting a joke made by the foreign secretary, before the election, about the how the Prime Minister was being dominated by her advisers: “That’s a form of modern slavery right there,” he’d said. The problem with Mr Johnson’s mean jokes is that they’re also quite funny.

As we all know, if Mrs May did have the authority, or at least the chutzpah, she would have fired Mr Johnson by now for freelancing on foreign policy. But she is still reeling from a general election that put her in an exceptionally weak position.

Firstly, it destroyed the aura of success that a leader needs to command loyalty. The patronage of a woman who can’t win is a defunct coinage. It’s even worse when the devaluation is so swift and unexpected. The irony is that Mrs May actually judged the national mood exactly right when she said that British voters were angry about capitalism and that, to save it, the Tories would have to address that. Unfortunately, she was neither bold nor deft enough to lead the party there, and so instead we got the Maybot, and Jeremy Corbyn seized the initiative.

Secondly, the election left the government without a policy platform. “Because we junked the manifesto, there’s no map,” one MP told me. The party has now gone through two manifestos in three years. The latest piecemeal announcements – the promise of a piffling £360 per year off £9,000 student fees and a return of the inflationary “help to buy” scheme that will push house prices further out of reach – make the Government look like it is out of ideas.

Mrs May can’t undo the election, but she does have an opportunity, this week, to buy some breathing space in which to develop policy and establish a semblance of authority. The big, set-piece speech is one thing she can do well, and the Tories need to hear something impressive at their conference in Manchester.

There are also factors in her favour. Despite the open rebellion in the Cabinet, MPS still have no appetite for a leadership contest, especially during Brexit negotiations, fearing that it will tip the whole party into a full-scale civil war. None of them want another election. And although Mr Johnson’s guerrilla campaign to stay relevant might have won him a bounce in popularity among grassroots Tory activists – one recent poll showed him back in front of his rivals after his Brexit intervention – it is also breeding some serious ill will.

One Tory MP tells of receiving “four to five letters a week” from usually taciturn party members attacking the foreign secretary, accusing him of putting himself before party and country and claiming that “he’s a liar, he’s untrustworthy, he’s egotistical”. Another Tory MP said that if Mr Johnson were to get himself fired and run for leader any time soon, a significant contingent of the parliamentary party would support “anyone but Boris” and “would be having meetings to stop him”. “Every day that goes by, he becomes less powerful and less important,” the MP said.

Whatever one thinks about Mr Johnson, though, at least when he takes a risk, he throws himself into it. It is time for Mrs May to do the same. Her inability to set out a vision that inspires people is killing her government. She seems determined to play it safe, but she has already lost her majority – what more does she have to lose? She might as well reshuffle her Cabinet ruthlessly and develop a bold policy platform that she can sell to the country.

There are plenty of ideas around on the Right covering important topics, from automation to infrastructure investment, trade policy, data FOLLOW Juliet Samuel on Twitter @Citysamuel; READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion ownership and competition in the tech industry. And there’s little mystery as to what creates Tory voters. You do it by ensuring that people have access to houses they can afford to buy and qualifications that get them the jobs they want.

Instead, we are now at a point where anyone under 45 is starting to look, demographically, like a “young person” because they are unable to afford their own home. We are suffering the biggest wage squeeze in nearly a century. Instead of “help to buy”, which increases housing demand and not supply, we need a massive policy overhaul to get at least a million new homes built. Instead of a Labour-lite offering to students, we need to look at why degrees aren’t value for money and why businesses still face skill shortages despite Britain supposedly having one of the most educated workforces in Europe.

Mrs May could make voters a compelling offer of reform as an alternative to Mr Corbyn’s revolution. But to do that, she needs to look at policies that will move the dial, rather than tinkering with student fees, half-baked energy price caps or pointless tweaks to corporate governance. The Government might be busy with Brexit, but most of its MPS and activists are sitting idle, watching Mr Corbyn set the agenda. If Mrs May could develop an inspiring vision, she would not lack for ideas on how to implement it.

The likelihood, unfortunately, is that she continues as is and the Conservative Party goes on in its unhappy limbo. We can expect perennial talk of a leadership challenge, vicious briefing and policies that play catch-up, and all the while Mr Corbyn is building up his campaign machine. What a depressing prospect.