May soldiers on
She’s delusional, said the London Evening Standard. After Theresa May’s “disastrous, wooden performance” in the June election, it was “universally acknowledged” by Tory MPS that she could never lead them to the polls again. In its aftermath, to “stave off an immediate execution”, she told MPS that she would jump before she was pushed, saying: “I will serve as long as you want me.” The assumption was that she’d see out Brexit negotiations and leave in the summer of 2019. But on a trip to Japan last week, she revealed that her plans had changed. “I’m here for the long term,” she declared, adding that she intended to take the Tories into the 2022 election. “Like the living dead in a second-rate horror film,” she seems set to stagger on, oblivious to the fact that she has “no more than half a dozen” real supporters in the parliamentary party.
May isn’t mad to think she can carry on, said Philip Collins in The Times. The reason she became Prime Minister in the first place was “that there was no body else. That is still true. The Conservative party does not have a viable replacement.” Most of the Cabinet are, “frankly, not good enough to be Prime Minister”. There are talented people working their way up the ranks – Jesse Norman, Jo Johnson, Gavin Williamson – but they won’t be ready to lead by summer 2019. Besides, if by then May is able to declare Brexit complete, there will be a decent “political dividend” for her. “It will be an achievement, even if you regard it as a disastrous one.” Still, her position is tenuous, said Isabel Hardman in The Spectator. You have to bear in mind how “monstrously” many ministers believe they were treated in the run-up to the election. Some Cabinet members only learnt about party policy for their own ministries when they read the manifesto on the way to the launch. Since then, May has sacked her “dictatorial” advisers, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill. The phone is answered at No. 10; “people are listened to”. She has buttered up MPS by inviting them to Chequers for Prosecco and canapés. But anything – a poor response to a crisis, say – could end the “fragile harmony”.
The PM’S statement of intent didn’t mean much, said Bagehot in The Economist. Tony Blair and David Cameron both “created rods for their own backs by setting dates for their departure”. Better to claim that you’ll go on and on than “to name your sell-by date” and give MPS another excuse “to manoeuvre for the succession”. Whatever she said, May has “no more chance of leading the Tories into the next election than Jacob Rees-mogg”. She is merely trying to make “the best of her position as an interim prime minister”: expect a series of policy announcements in the coming weeks. Besides, prime ministers seldom get a choice in this matter, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. Every PM since Harold Wilson has been booted out, either by the voters or their own parties. “I can’t say precisely when Mrs May will make her exit. I can say it won’t be the exit she would have chosen.”