FOLLY’S AFTERMATH

The lady is for turning, but alas to no avail. What’s next for Theresa May? Having made a hash of the general election she herself engineered, and single-handledly lost, she should have done the decent thing and resigned. Instead, she humiliated herself and opted to remain undaunted by her utter failure and had the temerity to rush to Buckingham Palace to seek The Queen’s approval to form a new government.

This she has done, despite the fact that she no longer enjoyed a parliamentary majority and caused anger and division within her own party the likes of which we have rarely seen in previous Conservative administrations. A sketch by Michael Deakin in The Times last Saturday described her transition from Iron Lady to Rag Doll in such a short space of time which strikes me as spot on! At the mercy of the 10 DUP MPs with whom she now intends to form a minority government simply to buy time, she’ll remain a figurehead before her final demise comes to haunt her.

What a climb down from a lady who was egged on by the majority of the right-wing press to believe herself the new Margaret Thatcher, elevated to godly stature to lead the nation in negotiating a lucrative Brexit agreement with the EU and create the dawn of a new powerful Britain. Her attempt to make the remainers eat their words and establish herself as the shining light in the annals of political history has ended in abject failure.

The outcry she caused by her arrogance is hard to stomach. She has been weakened as a result and fatally wounded and her capabilities exposed as pure fantasy. By contrast, Emmanuel Macron, the newly elected President of France, is poised for a landslide in the parliamentary elections now taking place and his popularity has surged beyond the wildest dreams of the French establishment.

Theresa May’s failure was self-inflicted. The Tory manifesto was the worst of any previous Tory government, her electoral campaign was devoid of all pizzazz, boringly conducted, and in the end, alienated a lot of her previous admirers. Her rhetoric was annoyingly repetitive with regard to her own negotiating abilities which had never been put to the test. It was so self-indulgent and manifestly put people off. She has nobody to blame except herself. She should now accept the consequences of her folly and retire with dignity.

The recurring tragedy of politicians is that they never learn the lessons of history and their actions invariably trigger their downfall.