This is what the PM must do to avoid getting her cards after a run of bad luck
“THE misfortune of Mrs May continues.”
That’s the verdict on the past week from one of those who will be crucial to whether she gets to continue as PM.
Ever since her ill-fated decision to call an early election, Theresa May has had no luck.
Her voice going at conference has been followed by a sex scandal at Westminster that threatens to engulf her Government — and now a secretary of state having to resign for pursuing their own, personal foreign policy.
As one No10 source admits: “If you’d made a list of things you were worried about, these wouldn’t have been on it.”
But Theresa May’s problem isn’t that a black cat has crossed her path. Rather, it’s that the Government is in the doldrums. There is painfully little progress on either the Brexit or domestic fronts.
The Government doesn’t have enough momentum to push past crises. So it is getting stuck in them.
Tory MPs have not been impressed by how the Prime Minister has dealt with the Westminster sex scandal.
They feel that, given her own impeccable personal behaviour, she could have done more to differentiate the serious allegations from the more trivial ones that have ended up doing the rounds on social media.
“It has been handled badly,” fumes one senior Tory backbencher.
The calculation about whether May can stay as Prime Minister is starting to shift.
At the end of the week, one previously bullish Cabinet minister told me: “She won’t last until Brexit Day.”
Most Tory MPs, though, are still reluctant to move against May. They fear the chaos that could follow. One of those whose support would be needed for any attempt to ease her out warns: “It is self-evidently better to keep her in place unless how she handles things exposes everyone to danger.”
If May is to regain the initiative, she needs to do three things. FIRST, she needs to ensure that the Budget on Wednesday week is adequate for the times. The tensions between No10 and No11 must not be allowed to stand in the way of a bold Budget that offers answers to the housing crisis.
SECOND, May needs to finally decide what kind of Brexit deal Britain wants. Ridiculously, the Cabinet has yet to have a proper discussion on the end state of the UK/EU relation- ship, a situation that one senior Cabinet minister describes as “embarrassing”.
May needs to remedy this as soon as possible. She needs to be able to go to the December European Council and tell EU leaders what Britain wants. Just as importantly, a decision would allow her to start setting out to the country — and the world — what her vision for Brexit Britain is.
FINALLY, she needs to do a proper, not forced, reshuffle. At a time of her choosing, she needs to carry out a major shake-up of her team.
She needs to show she still has the power to hire and fire.
She also owes it to the party to bring on the next generation of talent, to give those who want to run for the leadership a chance to show whether they’ve got it or not.
Theresa May hasn’t had any breaks recently. But she needs to remember that the best prime ministers make their own luck.
Is Ruth Davidson on manoeuvres?
ON Monday, Tory MPs can hear from a Tory leader who gained seats at the General Election.
Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Tories, who increased her party’s number of MPs north of the border from one to 13 in June, is coming to Westminster to address the influential 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers.
Davidson’s decision to talk directly to Tory MPs has triggered fevered speculation at Westminster about her leadership ambitions.
Davidson, who celebrated her 39th birthday yesterday, has more natural political talent than any other Tory.
She is also capable of transcending the divisions in the party. She might have campaigned passionately for Remain, but the grassroots still love her.
Her decision to travel to London to talk to Tory MPs follows hot on the heels of her appearance at a dinner for Sussex Tories last weekend, where I am told she went from table to table at the end of the evening. This pattern of behaviour has left many Tories convinced she is now interested in leading the party into the next General Election.
But in Edinburgh, her allies are adamant she is “not on manoeuvres”. They say she is simply taking up an invitation from the Scottish Tory MP John Lamont, who now sits on the executive of the 1922 Committee.
While in London, Davidson will also address a Women to Win dinner, which is designed to raise money for female Tory candidates in Scotland.
Davidson, though, should bear in mind the words of one of her Tory admirers.
“If she wants it, her time is now.”
Outside Jeremy in the hunt
THE Tory leadership race has been re-shaped in the past fortnight.
Michael Fallon is no longer a caretaker candidate and it is hard to see how Priti Patel can run. Gavin Williamson, the new defence secretary, has made clear his ambition.
But there is another Tory whose name keeps being mentioned to me – Jeremy Hunt.
In Cabinet, he is one of the very few ministers to have transcended the Leave-Remain divide.
He has a vision for a dynamic, innovative post-Brexit economy.
Critics dismiss the prospect of a Hunt leadership bid, pointing out that last year he couldn’t even get enough support to stand.
But it is worth remembering exactly the same happened to Theresa May. She tried and failed to get on the ballot in the contest that made David Cameron leader. Next time round, with her rivals imploding, she stood and won.
One minister who would back Hunt admits that he would struggle to win from his current job as health secretary.
But if he is moved to the Treasury in a December reshuffle, he would instantly become a contender.
May and Hammond budget deadlock
THE impasse between Philip Hammond and Theresa May over planning policy shows no sign of breaking.
The Budget is a week on Wednesday, but the pair are nowhere near agreement.
One senior Treasury source tells me that Hammond “has explained the economic reality to her and she just doesn’t want to listen”.
Relations between May and Hammond are fast descending to Blair, Brown levels. In Whitehall, the word is that the Treasury is trying to shield the Budget from No10.
It is a pretty poor backdrop to one of the Government’s few remaining chances to take back control of the political agenda.
—WHEN it came to picking a replacement for Priti Patel, Mrs May wasn’t so much carrying out a reshuffle but an organ transplant.
She was looking for the closest possible match to Patel to lower the chances of the party rejecting her choice.
Penny Mordaunt is, like her predecessor, a female Brexiteer – with leadership ambitions.
But I suspect that Mordaunt will go down in the history books for being the first person to appear on a reality TV show BEFORE entering the Cabinet. I’d wager that she won’t be the last reality contestant to make the Cabinet, either.
