Over the weekend, it emerged that Theresa May likes to compare herself to Elizabeth I (although as I argue in my Telegraph column today, she’s been behaving more like the young Queen Victoria lately). The PM clearly meant the association as a compliment to herself, but on Saturday, Labour MP Barry Gardiner went in for a far more negative comparison. Complaining about Theresa May’s proposed plan to trigger Article 50 without a new parliamentary vote on the matter, Gardiner went full Philippa Gregory on us, accusing May of acting ‘to diminish parliament and assume the arrogant powers of a Tudor monarch.’ Next he’ll be accusing her of throwing a tantrum over her wig.
For a steward of the institution, Gardiner hasn’t been reading much parliamentary history recently, as historians on Twitter were quick to point out.
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