It's time to state the obvious: Theresa May is really not very good.
She failed as Home Secretary to control migration and is daft enough to set herself the same targets now.
She dithered over Brexit and has no plan how to deal with it now that's her task: the Tory manifesto makes that clear.
Her first budget had one idea and it was a disaster and had to be abandoned.
He first manifesto had just one big idea and it too has been abandoned.
These really are measures of incompetence. But I accept people would expect me to say that. So take the word of Matt Chorley of The Times who is madly anti-Labour (as you would expect) and who wrote in the Red Box email (which is free and I consider essential daily reading) this morning:
Three weeks ago I wrote that despite being likened to Margaret Thatcher and Jesus, May was actually not very good. She is fine at reading things out but terrible at answering questions or responding to criticism. I was surprised by the number of senior Tories, under sworn secrecy, who got in touch to say that in the privacy of their own thoughts, they agreed.
Support within for the PM in the Tory party, even among ministers, is wide but pretty shallow.
I admit now I made two mistakes in that column. First, I predicted the correction in public opinion would come after June 8, when May had to make big decisions and her mettle was tested. It has come much sooner.
And I ended by saying: "But it's fine because she is going to win, and win big, and I will be removed from my bed in the middle of the night to be taken to a camp and re-educated."
I admit I was wrong. The idea that May will win big now looks, if not impossible, in serious doubt.
Quite so, on all counts.
She won the leadership ahead of a useless field but that offered no evidence of support: no one had to vote for her. And now her vacuity is very clear.
It's well known that Jeremy Corbyn and I have had our differences. But he's a master of political management in comparison with May.
What is more he has two vital qualities she will never be able to claim. They are integrity and consistency. And right now people are realising that they matter.
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Thanks for the interesting read.
As Home Secretary she also pushed through the Police & Crime Commissioners nonsense – a seriously flawed piece of legislation for which there was neither evidence nor need. She refused to listen to informed advice then, or to accept responsibility for the inevitable failures. It was an early indication of her weaknesses.
The sad commentary on the state of politics is that she was the least worst candidate for Conservative leader last summer.
I don’t agree with your assessment of Corbyn though, I’m afraid: his actions over the years may have shown consistency, but often lacked integrity. He would be even worse as PM: unfit where May is merely incompetent.
To me it seems clear that we have two candidates for PM who are not up to the job and there is no palatable alternative . May (but not the Conservative Party) is preferable to Corbyn (but not the Labour Party). Not a good position to be in.
please explain why you think Corbyn is no good, seems to me he has ALL the qualities required to lead our nation, and he has a team behind him, who are actually more qualified than their equivalent in the tory party.
Briefly:
Judgement: he has been wrong on many of the major issues we’ve faced over 30 years. This includes his beliefs and actions on terrorism, the anti-semitism inquiry, Nato, Brexit and others. Being wrong is not a disqualifier in itself: it’s the failure to recognise he was wrong and to change his views while attempting to rewrite history which matters.
Competence: his performance as leader of the opposition has been woeful. Not only internally — the way he dealt with shadow cabinet ministers such as Thangam was dreadful and the leader’s office is a byword for its incompetence — but in his major duty of holding the government to account. He has failed miserably at this: why would anyone think he will improve in a more difficult role?
Cohort: he has surrounded himself with people whose judgement and competence are equally suspect, some of whom come from far-left backgrounds who do not belong in a Labour Party capable of governing. There are some good shadow cabinet ministers, of course, but that’s not enough to override the incompetence at the top.
The policies are broadly speaking fine. There are many many good labour MPs and the country will be better off with a Labour government: but I don’t think that they will be better off with Corbyn as Prime Minister.
Brookter:
All those judgements are highly debatable of course:
1)Terrorism: he believes that talking can help when that is possible-in the case of very extreme nihilistic groups that isn’t possible and Corbyn has made that clear. Since the 70’s Governments held talks withe IRA (often in secret). Corbyn’s role is considered by many involved to have presaged and paved the way towards piece.
2) NATO: Nato has clearly been ratcheting up the Cold War 2 rhetoeric with Stoltenber copming out with utter absurdities regarding Russian intentions on ‘world domination.’ Nato’s role in the former Yugoslavia (see: Micahel Parenti-www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7SKFvPrQ-0) is highly questionable as an agent of neo-liberalism. American’t themselves are questioning its relevance and it’s link the the military industrial complex.
3) Anti-semitism. Many serious jewish commentators such as Norman Finkelstein have been highly critical of the media and th facile accusations of anti-semitism levelled at Corbyn. i advise you to check some of this out before you raise it as if it were a fact. See: http://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/jamie-stern-weiner-norman-finkelstein/american-jewish-scholar-behind-labour-s-antisemitism-scanda.
4) Brexit. Corbyn followed Tony Benns scepticism about the EU and the way it would be a conduit for globalised capital and create the formation of a banking oligarchy. We know from history that the EU transformed into a manifestly neo-liberal institution in the 1980’s, deserting the vision of Monet and Schumman. Given the behaviour of the Troika and the levels of inequality and rapacious privatisation of public goods in Greece these concerns were prescient.
Mr Corbyn revealed his leadership qualities that day he sat huddled and whining in a railway carriage where there were no seats available. I want a leader ho will show a bit of fight – who will indeed have the iron in his -or her – blood to be able to “fight, fight, and fight again” against all the enemies of progress, justice, truth, and equality. Mr Corbyn mouths the correct words and ideals and the greater part of what the Labour Party is proposing and that he would advocate has my full backing. But listening to him is like listening to a mouse squeak. And he has no judgment of the competence or otherwise of the people he leads. If he is incapable of getting rid of the ludicrous liability Diana Abbott,he is assuredly incapable of creating and firing up a team that will fight with devastating effect against thew bastions of injustice. Nor is it easy to see him in the negotiatins with the EU. He sits down in the dirty back corner of railway carriage and whines. Leaders of the Revolution need to be made of steel, not straw.
Whatever you said after the reference to the raikway carriage is meaningless
You can base a judgement on that?
I have differed with Jeremy, but that’s bizarre
Brookter
I’m not a fan of JC in any way & suspect he isn’t going to win but I’dve thought foreign affairs was his strong point.
We intervened in Iraq, JC said no, we made things worse
We intervened in Afghanistan, JC said no, we made things
We intervened in Libya, JC said no, we made things worse
Mufugga got a 100% record going in, just sayin’
@Simon,
I wrote a response to your points last night, but they’ve not appeared for some reason. Not sure what happened. I’m not gong to type it out all again, but to summarise:
The available evidence on your points 1) and 3) is overwhelmingly against your conclusion.
Points 2 and 4 are more a matter of judgement: Corbyn’s lack of support for NATO at a time of increasing Russian aggressive activities (interfering in Elections, actions in Ukraine, etc etc) in my view shows a lack of judgement which disqualifies him to be PM.
As for Brexit, if he believes it was right to leave, he should have said so publicly in the campaign. Instead he offered lukewarm endorsement while he and his staff were at best unhelpful to the Remain campaign and some sources say they were obstructive. Not only might (we cannot say for sure of course) this have reduced the Remain vote, I cannot see how these are the actions of a man of integrity.
@eriugenus,
Many people would dispute that he has a 100% record. He has objected to every foreign intervention, including Kosovo and Sierra. The first is generally believed to have been a necessary humanitarian intervention which saved many lives; while keeping out of the second has hardly been a great success. Voting against them may have been consistent; it is not 100% right.
But anyway: Corbyn’s record is there in the evidence for all to see. If you’ve looked at the available evidence and don’t believe it, or you don’t think what it says matters, or you agree with the actions he took, then fine: you are perfectly entitled –Â you must – make your own judgement. I was asked why I personally don’t think Corbyn is fit to be PM, and I’ve explained why.
Anyway, this is all probably a distraction from the point of Richard’s original post on May, with which I agree entirely.
Regards.
Can you imagine how she would have coped had she been given the treatment that Corbyn has received over the last few months, let alone the last few years?
She’s been very lucky that the internal dissent has remained private, and that certain key people in the media were happy to portray her as a ‘safe pair of hands’ despite her woeful record as Home Secretary.
It was a sort of post-modernist project to assemble May as a Thatcher simulacrum and it has manifestly failed with the clockwork mechanism coughing up it parts.
I think the young are seeing through to the empty vessel. The last 40 years has been based on bluster, spin and PR with manufactured images from Thatcher’s deepened voice and helmet hairdo to May’s leather pants and power-dressing vicar’s daughter image.
let’s hop we’ve got to the point where we are sick of this crap.
It is said that Ms. May was the best of the bunch on offer. Oh dear. Bojo, where are you when we need you?
In bed
Thankfully
Corbyn’s whole 33 year career has been based on integrity. Rank him next to each PM we’ve had over the last 30 years. Rank him next to the integrity of every newspaper, or newspaper owner. Rank him next to every owner of a large corporation, such as Richard Branson, Alan Sugar and co. The IRA sympathiser rhetoric is simply going to look desperate now and cost the Tories votes, just as it boosted Corbyn in the leadership elections. I think the people are ‘mad as hell and not going to take it any more’. 😉
‘I think the people are ‘mad as hell and not going to take it any more’.
Astue reference to ‘The Network of 1976 , a satyrical look at the politics of the 70’s and an amazingly prophetic statement about the nascent neo-liberalism about to sweep the world.
The script was by Paddy Chayefsky and the climactic speech by the corporate backer of the T.V company still sounds amazingly contemporary with it’s paeans to global capital:
Worth a listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxiT30N6ti4
and here’s the great Peter Finch ‘mad as hell’ as the news caster -fantastic performance (not Corbyn’s style!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGIY5Vyj4YM
Just watched it
Very good
Agreed.
May is a back room girl – she is no figurehead.
She is a small part of a very effective machine however.
But this is 2017 – post truth and all that.
Do you have to be good at anything to get to the top of politics these days?
Especially if you do not actually believe in the value of Government and the State in the first place.
“May is a back room girl”
“She is a small part of a very effective machine”
“back room” implies some level of competence.
“small part of an effective machine” really? she is PM
The link below demolishes the myth (& that is what it is) of any figment of an idea that May is competent, ditto the idea that she was part of an “effective machine”. The Tories 2010 – 2015 made it up as they went along, did endless u turns & hoped the public’s memory was limited. They also had the press on their side – endlessly. Tories: think they are born to rule, but unfit to run a fish n chip shop.
https://brexit853.wordpress.com/2016/09/26/freedom-of-movement-isnt-the-problem-it-is-the-way-the-uk-fails-to-control-it/
You raise a good point that isn’t discussed more frequently and openly. Anyone can stand up and say stuff like ‘Follow me; I’m your leader” or “The country needs strong leadership; vote for me”. In the current media environment such soundbites regrettably garner some credibility, especially when associated with selective imagery. But, of course, in reality they are meaningless and potentially dangerous.
I’m not saying that May is an exception to the fact that it is not unusual to end up with people running the country who have no formal management and leadership experience or training. It’s a crazy lottery hoping, without any rational evidence, that the elected ‘leader’ can actually lead. History suggests that the ‘qualities’ enabling someone to end up as head honcho of their respective political party have little direct relationship to being an effect leader of a much wider community such as a nation – or, as in the case of US President, a large chunk of the world.
It suggests to me that we’re still stuck in a political culture that harks back to the 19th century, with archaic concepts of leadership’ based on wealth, privilege, property, etc. In the 20th century this mutated into commercial success within the capitalist matrix. Donald Trump exemplifies this, with the assumption that commercial ‘success’ translates into the ability to manage a nation. Here in the UK this assumption was given ultimate credence under Thatcherism when the phrase ‘UK Plc’ entered the vernacular.
Back in the day, in the absence of formal leadership training, MPs gained some practical experience of the wider community in the armed forces, trades unions etc. But, today the skill-set required to deal with the increasing complexity of society and its needs, cannot be left to chance. Which brings me back to Theresa May. By any measurement criteria she has no qualifications to lead the UK. She simply suited the immediate needs of the Tory Party to deal with its internal conflicts arising from the Cameron / Osborne débâcle.
How one convinces the voting public that they need and deserve real leaders and not media-friendly constructs falls into the ‘household budget’ category of ‘basic understandings’. The weird thing about May is that she’s not even media-friendly and would fail the purely subjective test of ‘would I invite her for dinner’. Trump would certainly be more entertaining!
I don’t know that May failed at immigration, she was faced there with an impossible dilemma, knowing that the UK desperately needed its immigrant population and at the same time charged with removing it. She’s faced with something similar here, with implementing Brexit when she’s well aware the consequences may be catastrophic. But she is completely useless as a PM, there’s no doubt about that at all. Dangerous, even.
Brexit will stop all uncontrolled immigration so of course she’ll be able to achieve what she could not before – if she’s elected.
She could control at least 50% of migration before – and did not
What sort of a mess will it leave the country in though? Remove the cheap immigrants and who’ll do the work they now do, a lot of which is in areas of genuine high employment anyway?
It is interesting to contrast our ministers with the new French cabinet chosen by President Macron – for example his health minister is a medical doctor, his education minister an education professor, his culture minister a writer, all professionals and experts in their field, compared with our bumbling ungifted amateurs !
The cheesy, sharpsuited creep with the unctious ‘bedside manor’ and ‘personality halitosos’ Michael Fallon is floored and rendered stuttery by Krishnan Gurumurthy (Gurumurphy I almost typed!) as the words of Boris Johnson are quoted to him and he attacks them thinking they are words of Corbyn!
priceless -the Joy of seeing the greasy Tories floundering! See: https://twitter.com/krishgm
Fallon is utterly hopeless
He’s not that good.
Yes I saw that. Fallon made a complete idiot of himself. One person however who seems to be really growing into her job is Emily Thornberry.
Fallon is everything that is wrong with the Conservative Party (not to mention British politics) absolutely personified.
A man apparently lacking in either self-awareness or self-respect, whose only job seems to be to shamelessly emit whichever slur against an opposing politician has been ordered by the Tory head honchos.
A useful guide, however. If Fallon is loudly denouncing you in the media, you must be doing something right!
The guff about Corbyn being an IRA sympathiser is laughable, desperate stuff. Here’s a list of some of the UK govt dialogues with the IRA, it’s long and may not be comprehensive: https://ansionnachfionn.com/2017/05/22/thirty-years-of-secret-talks-and-negotiations-between-britain-and-the-ira/
I disagree with Corbyn on many things but couldn’t vote conservative. The party talks about being for the many not the selected few, yet it takes large donations from large landlords who effectively bribe the party to keep leasehold tenure, a feudal anachronism that has been abolished everywhere that inherited it from English common law and is retained only in England and Wales, blighting the lives of millions and enriching the few. See http://www.leaseholdknowledge.com if this is news.
Paul, about 39% of the Tory M.P.’s have significant interests in property and land. How many are implicated in the leasehold I don’t know. people’s lives have been turned inside out by leasehold rip-offs and it is unbelievable that it can even be legal to flog the leasehold as a financialised piece of the property game.
‘Leasehold houses have proliferated as housebuilders exploit the housing crisis to make extra revenues by selling off the freeholds, often to shady investors based overseas who hide behind nominee directors.’
I wholly agree with you on leasehold Simon
The greatest biscuit-taker so far -Osborne refers to May as ‘economically illiterate’:
Feel free to roll around splitting your sides at Osborne referring to May as economically illiterate:
‘ Osborne explained its denunciation of May’s pledge to cut net migration below 100,000 as “politically rash and economically illiterate” (Grauniad)
This, surely , is further evidence that neo-liberalist politics has descended into pure piss-take. he’s right about May but there is no sense of irony let alone embarrassment that he must count as one of the most ignorant an economically illiterate gross-amateurs to enter the political arena. Signs of a culture so dumbed-down there is no need to even attempt to hide the farce anymore.