Mrs May must recover to fight for Brexit

‘While the glitches in Mrs May’s speech were simply bad luck, its contents were intentional. Sad to say, it lacked coherence’

Theresa May is a woman with a strong sense of public service and duty. This sustained her after the election setback in June when she was initially inclined to stand down as Prime Minister but was persuaded to carry on in the interests of the country. As she said in Manchester, the true test of a leader’s mettle is a capacity to overcome adversity and resilience under fire. Mrs May is certainly having to draw on both of these virtues after a conference speech that was, unfortunately, emblematic of her Government’s current travails.

She was big enough to concede from the outset that these are self-inflicted wounds. In 2015, the Tories won their first outright parliamentary majority since 1992 only for it to be lost as a result of Mrs May’s fateful decision to call a snap election. Hard as they tried in Manchester to put the best gloss on this, with ministers pointing out that the Tories won a greater share of the vote than at any time since the 1980s, the consequences hung over the proceedings like a pall.

The Prime Minister, who has been accused of lacking empathy, was sufficiently attuned to her party’s dismay to apologise in the most profuse terms. “I take responsibility. I led the campaign. And I am sorry,” she said. Her mea culpa was appreciated by a party which was anxious to rally around its leader in difficult circumstances. She, in turn, wanted to deliver a speech that would reassert her authority and project an image of steadfastness and the power of office.

That it all went wrong was not her fault; but it was symptomatic of a government in trouble. Losing her voice would not normally matter - but it does when you are seeking to show strength. A prankster handing her a P45 “on behalf of Boris” was dealt with cleverly but represented a significant security breach that underlined her vulnerability. The slow disintegration of the slogan on the wall behind her was indicative of a party conference where a facade of optimism belied deep unease just below the surface.

For all three to happen to Mrs May at such a moment was politically awkward and a cause of personal distress, as was apparent from her demeanour at the end. Who, apart from the most hardhearted, did not feel sorry for her? But pity is not an emotion a leader can afford to provoke, not least at such a critical juncture in our nation’s history.

But while the glitches in the speech were simply bad luck, its contents were intentional, and ministers invited people to disregard the noises off and look at the substance of what Mrs May had to say. Sad to say, it lacked coherence. The Prime Minister evidently wants to continue with the One Nation policies that she first enunciated on taking office last year. Yet with Jeremy Corbyn’s Left-wing Labour party on the march, she was also emboldened to mount a defence of free markets.

This led to an odd juxtaposition of ideas. She announced legislation to cap prices in the energy market, which may be popular but sat uncomfortably with her assertion that “the idea of free and open markets, operating under the right rules and regulations, is precious”. The cap was first put forward by Labour under Ed Miliband and denounced by the Conservatives. Now it plays into Mr Corbyn’s hands: once the principle is conceded he will offer more help and cap more prices than the Conservatives. Moreover, a cap merely acts as an incentive to keep prices up and militates against competition. It is a bad, and not very Tory, idea. Far better would be to ban the exit fees which the big suppliers use to trap customers on high tariffs.

The big announcement in the speech was on housing. Mrs May identified the shortage of new homes and the difficulties young people have in getting on the property ladder as a massive problem that must be tackled. But the Conservative solution is not to return to the days of government house-building. That is Labour’s way. It will not “reignite home ownership in Britain” by making more people tenants of the state.

In the event, the policy was not quite as billed: an extra £2bn was added to an existing fund for affordable housing which already stands at £7bn yet has failed to produce enough new homes. Why adding money will help is not clear. The big issue remains the availability of land for building homes where they are needed. Mrs May said the Government would make sure the land was freed up, though without giving any details of how this would happen.

There was little in the speech about Brexit because the policy was mapped out in Florence recently. But this remains a fault-line in the party and a moment of historic importance for the country. Mrs May has a monumental task ahead of her, steering Britain through to the other side, with a confrontation looming in Brussels in just two weeks’ time over the current stalemate in the negotiations. She will need to draw upon reserves of physical and mental strength to defend the nation’s interests against a concerted EU effort to inflict pain on the UK. The country must hope that she is up to the task.