Theresa May’s ‘strong and stable’ strapline has apparently been withdrawn after the electorate started to sway with nausea. Yet the words remain emblazoned on the ‘battle bus’, still crop up in interviews, and continue to litter campaign material across the country. To little effect. The phrase was soon found to be a blunt weapon, not cutting through to voters but bludgeoning them into a stupor. To be ‘strong and stable’ is so self-evidently desirable that to say so is vacuous and empty. In fact, as we have seen, this limp phrase has recently rebounded with some force: ‘strong and stable’ has become the benchmark against which to judge a Prime Minister stymied by handbrake U-turns and dithering imprecision.
But Theresa May certainly isn’t the first to use the ‘S’ words. In October 1931, when forced into action by an ‘unnecessary election’, Sir Herbert Samuel conceded that he and his Liberal Ministers ‘felt it their duty to co-operate with the Prime Minister in maintaining a strong and stable Government composed of men of all parties’.
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