It’s always easy and usually wrong to describe single political speeches as pivotal or decisive. Always remember: almost no-one in the real world watches anything except a few clips on the news the evening the speech is given. The amount of coverage devoted to leaders’ speeches at party conferences is usually excessive, beyond what most of the readership or audience really want or care about.
But this one, this one is different. This really is the crucible, the decisive moment. Theresa May’s premiership turns on how this is seen.
Coughing, stumbling and victim to a brutally effective visual prank by an apparent ‘comedian’, we have seen a British Prime Minister come as close to the brink of public unravelling as we ever have before.
(The only other time I think I’ve ever seen a PM stare into the abyss in this way was in Japan in 2003 when, days after the death of David Kelly, a reporter asked Tony Blair if he had ‘blood on your hands’ – Blair, a man never lost for words or unsure of himself, froze for a second with a look of naked terror before regaining his composure and walking away.)
Regardless of your politics or party (I have none), I defy anyone to watch Theresa May trying to cope with that cough without feeling a squirming sense of awkward sympathy.
Yes, I know: politicians are all volunteers who generally live lives much more comfortable than the people affected by their decisions, but they’re still human beings.
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