theresa may: is her project subtly machiavellian or merely cunning, baldrick-style?

Everything was predicted in mark s's parenthetical comment in the opening post

(largely by keeping her mouth shut, which you can't do forever as PM)

this thread of tim shipman's responses to OJ is interesting

Why is Theresa May giving more insulting robotic interviews rather than announcing her immediate resignation?

— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) June 16, 2017

(shipman = political editor of the sunday times) (i don't have a high opinion of him as a commentator but i think it's likely his contacts at the upper level of the tory party are good)

Also seems to be a suggestion that Johnson would probably win any leadership challenge held now and there are enough senior Tories who want to avoid that to defer any decision until there are other viable options.

Excellent, they're shitin' it.

You've got to laugh when the best solution Portillo can come up with is.. Ruth Davidson!

... not even best solution, only solution.

another thing that i don't understand - beyond and coterminous with TM's previously outlying popularity - is how she managed to do well at PM's questions every week? she was more or less always proclaimed "THE WINNAR" and the bits that i saw never did too much to dispel that judgment. she never seemed that thrown. is this itself a judgment on PM's questions as a format? isn't it supposed to reveal this sort of fatal inability to handle difficult questions?

i: boris will always bottle it
ii: anyway murdoch wants gove

i fkn hate the phrase "stalking horse" but that is what we looking it rn, sadly sir anthony meyer died in 2004

It helped that 80% of the PLP were often effectively on TM's side at PMQ's and "difficult" questions are easy to wave away in parliament, not so easy in an election campaign.

it's summer 2017, and govemania is sweeping the nation

i don't think that's true anyway, eli -- she was routinely caught badly on the hop at question time, any time it was a topic she hadn't prepared really

PMQT is a ritual for the appreciation of the cognoscenti anyway -- sane voting punters really don't watch it in any great numbers -- and the cognoscenti were found very badly wanting in their grasp of the shape of the world just a week ago: "she did well" is dust along with all the other nostra

when's the next one? this coming wednesday? many more lab voices, tories on the ropes (with all kinds of optics beartraps lurrking), young lab intake entirely heartened and eager and angry, maybe i will for once become an insane voting punter and turn on the TV

I'd be tempted to put a bet on may skipping pmqs this week tbh

She was always a wooden performer, but it was often reported in a manner that Corbyn was often getting slayed by her silver-tongued wit. No-one is buying that story again.

that has the ring of truth to it mark. and i guess i must count myself as a sane voting punter because i'll admit i barely watched them. conventional wisdom's a powerful drug eh? i am too lazy to look them up but you made at least three posts here, and on twitter, over the past few months, where you said the confidence in may would last - in spades - right up until it didn't any more and that's exactly what's happened. the scenery all turned out to be cardboard.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCXWKLRXcAA0_Eu.jpg

worst ever attempt to look pensive and concerned for the cameras!

i'd even be enjoying "told you so" a little if the event that triggered the change weren't so beyond fucking awful

i still can't get over the fact that the only images we have of may's visit to grenfell look like fucking paparazzi shots

the change was on election day mark! this is just the i's being dotted and the t's being crossed as far as TM's public perception is concerned

I'd disagree with both of you - it tumbled and fell over the month before the election.

yes i remembered this as soon as i posted* but couldn't think of a way to describe what grenfell has done, bcz it's so much more than that: it's torn back the veil from a far deeper and more ghastly thing than t.may's social awkwardness (and m.gove's silly face and, well, there's never been anything good abt boris pissbottle but everything bad about him is still entirely small potatoes)

*"a week is a long time in ---" shut up harold

A lot of her authority did seem to drain away in that month - embarrassing no-shows - becoming the Maybot clown - manifesto of doom. I think both her and the right wing press were in a state of denial about this, but she probably had already lost her majority at that point imo.

Other thing about PMQs is that she always had a handful of scripted responses which didn't deal with the matter at hand but instead just laid into Corbyn personally (inability to lead party, mostly), which would be met with massive cheers and then there'd be no way to press the PM on the answer to the actual question, and then the soundbite is over. She can't do that to a member of the public or an interviewer, obviously, so she gives a rehearsed non-answer and looks terrible.

I'm with Andrew. The fact that she called snap elections, leaving left to right baffled really, was one thing. But she didn't own up to it; even worse, she started behaving very 'weak and unstable' (soz), dodging debates, voters, anyone really. If 'brexit is brexit' and 'no deal is better than a bad deal' are your prime slogans to win an election, you're in for it. Manifesto telling the elderly to eat their houses didn't help. And she still never really explained why this whole election was necessary iirc. She never explains anything tbh.

xxp what Calzino said basically.

What's the betting the queens spech will get voted down? Will the DUP hop on an obviously sinking ship? Are there eneough tories who would sink her?

Would expect the DUP to get some big concessions to stay on side. No way will any Tories vote against it, other than Ken Clarke perhaps, turkeys don't vote for Christmas.

ok i don't really buy this revisionist line: unless the june 8 exit poll was no shock to you, her "authority" had *not* yet drained away, she still had the commentariat (including most importantly us) under her spell (lol except maybe julio)

what 10 pm jun 8 revealed was that the polls had been failing to measure something -- and once you project this fact back, we literally don't know what actual authority or popularity she ever had

in conclusion: the event triggering the change was me devising and posting this thread, i thank you

xp
Ken Clarke sounded like he would be voting for it on Any Questions last night and was talking (and sounding quite delusional in this case) about how in Europe coalition govs can take 18 months to form - so be patient ppl!

Thankig u

xp

maybe May would've been more empathic if she'd had children...

hah! My mum said that, only in much harsher and not very politically correct wording.

xxp

Missed that. In 18 months time we could easily have had half a dozen by elections and not even the DUP could save them.

i wouldn't better against the DUP withdrawing its support right at the last moment to be honest

i think the tories will hold out as a bloc for weeks rather than days, precisely because they know they face the abyss -- but they are punchdrunk and stripped of options, and TM's government is way beyond exhausted now, and yes, bye elections

(remember the labour mps taking the option of retirement bcz they wanted to get out before the landslide: think of all those tory mps committing themselves to a full five years of grinding corrosive fake loyalty in the face of what ppl are now saying abt them -- not everyone can front up being repeatedly called murderers)

ken clarke: art50 clock started ticking 10 weeks ago i believe, 2 yrs less 18 months less 10 weeks is not a lot of time to get the negs hammered out dude

"i wouldn't better" s/b "i wouldn't bet" obv

remember the labour mps taking the option of retirement bcz they wanted to get out before the landslide

yes, yes i do

adding (as if there weren't enough pressures to hand): food prices are continuing to rise

LOL this thread is wot dun it!

Everything was predicted in mark s's parenthetical comment in the opening post

(largely by keeping her mouth shut, which you can't do forever as PM)

― The Adventures Of Whiteman (Bananaman Begins), Saturday, 17 June 2017 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No of course - this was called, and terrible that it has come to pass for all to see in the most tragic way - and with timing too.

She was actively bad at PMQs for most of the last year. Corbyn struggled when he was facing Cameron, mostly because he would ask overlong questions with too many sub-clauses, which allowed Cameron to pick one tiny bit he wanted to respond to and grandstand on that. May didn't do that, she was very wooden and yes did tend to resort to pre-prepared lines and cringeworthy attempts at humour. And yes that "inability to lead" line is never going to work for her again because she is obviously also unable to lead.

PMQs matters in normal times, not because it REALLY matters but because enough political journalists THINK it matters and it sets the tone for news coverage even for nominally impartial broadcasters. But we aren't in normal times and I would hope that enough journalists have learned the lesson of mistaking Westminster theatre for real politics. (Actually what am I talking about of course they haven't learned that lesson).

Looking back, Mark's first post pretty much nails everything to an almost prophetic degree. "Largely by keeping her mouth shut, something you can’t do forever as PM" is especially OTM because she is *still* trying to make that approach work even as it becomes one of the defining features of her political caricature. She also over-relied on the right-wing press to write her premiership for her and there is evidence that its influence is in decline.*

* For day-to-day politics at least, its influence in determining wider societal attitudes over the long term is still huge, if only because most of the work was done 20 years ago.

This is quite striking and supports Matt's final point.

We've matched @YouGov data on #GE2017 vote by age & @risj_oxford on main source of news-Labour won young online, Tories older people offline pic.twitter.com/2pAGyRUap7

— Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (@rasmus_kleis) June 16, 2017

In spite of everything in this thread, she still got 42% of the popular vote, lest we forget.

All praise to Mark, but I think the question in the title had been answered by the election - my tears when I heard the exit poll had nothing to do with her and more to do with the judgement on Corbyn. I think even if she'd won, she would have been weak - but again who else would want the job?

After a tough couple of weeks for the British PM - what’s next? Here’s @rabbitandcoffee with ‘Theresa May and the Holy Grail’. #auspol pic.twitter.com/P7Pnb0vwMo

— Insiders ABC (@InsidersABC) June 25, 2017

Ni! Ni! Ni!

(That's excellent)

Great work. Good cameo by Buckethead as well.

Well that far exceeded expectations

spreadin the luv

:0

And this is how it ends.

Or playing the reaaaly long game.

Gamely, valiantly, she battled on. The hall sensed her intent and started to get behind her. An activist near me with tattoos and purple hair clenched her fists in and out. People were sitting forward in tension.

Could the old girl make it? Could she complete the last few laps of this 18-page address and, albeit on half an engine, breast the tape? Two pages to go. One page to go. We were in the peroration. Yes! She’d done it!