If Theresa the rattling teleprinter is ever to unleash her inner raconteur, the time is now
‘The trouble for Mrs May is that her powers of persuasion reach a nadir just when she needs them most’
It might be hard to imagine, but Theresa May can be a witty and engaging speaker. At her best, she plays on her habitual formality to surprise and entertain with unexpected barbs. She has even been known to wickedly tease some of her colleagues. But few voters have ever had the chance to witness her at ease and off the cuff. Instead, they are accustomed to her rattling out the same old lines like an unstoppable teleprinter – as in her fractious appearance on yesterday’s Today programme – entrenching her reputation as “The Maybot”.
Some politicians have a gift in communicating with the nation. The best are universally charming, in public and behind closed doors, and are able to transmit that quality over the airwaves. Others, it must be said, have a more dubious gift of appearing persuasive and endearing while actually being anything but in private.
At the other end of the scale are those, like Mrs May, who find it difficult to communicate to the masses in the same way they might do easily one to one. Gordon Brown, too, was supposedly a great raconteur in person (at least when in a good mood), but by the end he was cursed to show all the good grace of a warthog with a headache whenever a camera or microphone came near.
The exact cause of the gap between the Prime Minister’s ability to win people over on a small scale and her struggle to do so on the national stage is a vexed question. Some who worked with her in opposition suggest her time in the Home Office left its mark.
The role of home secretary, which she held for six years, is not one that lends itself to warm and garrulous conversation. Every day, the ministerial red box is filled with grim insights into the horrendous atrocities this country’s enemies wish to perpetrate on British citizens – a burden that must be carried in secret.
At the same time, the department has a reputation as a career-killing minefield, full of errors and failures on topics the public feel strongly about. So home secretaries are generally required to watch their words and be on the defensive rather than set out a vision and sell it compellingly.
Communication trouble is obviously a suboptimal characteristic for any politician at any time. The trouble for Mrs May is that her powers of persuasion reach a nadir just when she needs them most.
Consider the torture of last year’s general election. As the manifesto exploded, the polls dipped and the Tory campaign machine began to creak, what confidence she displayed at the start visibly evaporated.
Literally losing her voice at the Conservative Party Conference was at least an issue not of her choosing but, by the time it happened, many voters already felt she was unwilling to speak to them.
And so it is with her beleaguered Brexit deal. The decision to deploy Michael Gove to sum up her Withdrawal Agreement debate suggests that she knows it, too.
The central proposal of her entire Government – the deal she sees as her best hope of a constructive legacy – is a plan about which many Conservative MPS, party members and voters have severe concerns. They believe, with good reason, that it breaches Tory manifesto pledges, that it will infuriate voters and damage both their party and the national interest. Some are dead set against while others are urgently demanding either reassurance or a change of tack.
In such a situation, the Prime Minister needs to be a saleswoman. She needs to persuade, to cajole and to at least plausibly appear to be listening. In other words, the very same qualities she has found most difficult to project.
Mark Wallace is executive editor of Conservativehome