Theresa May’s first Cabinet meeting wasn’t accompanied by the kind of eye-catching announcement you would have expected from Tony Blair or David Cameron. Instead, the big news is that the new Prime Minister will chair three Cabinet committees on the economy and industrial strategy, exiting the European Union, international trade and social reform. This does rather underline her reputation for being someone who doesn’t like delegating, as well as her interest in the serious machinery of government, rather than media gimmicks. She then underlined her serious reputation further by welcoming colleagues to the coffin-shaped table in Downing Street by saying the following:
‘When I launched my leadership campaign, I said that politics is not a game. The decisions that we take around this table affect people’s day-to-day lives and we must do the right thing.’
Perhaps the ‘not a game’ line was directed at Boris Johnson, who was sitting next to her. Perhaps it was an attempt to strike a contrast with some of those who had left the table in the past few days, such as the very political Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.
There was certainly a contrast between George Osborne and Philip Hammond at Treasury Questions today. Whereas the previous Chancellor would take every opportunity to needle Labour with lines about economic arson, Philip Hammond was altogether more, well, serious. The new Chancellor did use the line ‘I do not believe in the money tree,’ in response to John McDonnell, but that was it in terms of partisan attacks.
Perhaps we will see the same serious approach from May to Prime Minister’s Questions tomorrow. She is not known for cracking jokes – indeed, the times I have seen her least at ease with herself have been when she feels she is required to produce streams of wit. Her last recorded Commons joke didn’t go down all that well, either. Yesterday in the very serious Trident debate, she showed she wasn’t afraid to deploy very forceful political attacks by telling Caroline Lucas that ‘sadly, she and some Labour Members seem to be the first to defend the country’s enemies and the last to accept these capabilities when we need them’. And she showed she wasn’t afraid to be totally blunt, drawing gasps by saying ‘yes’ very directly when asked whether she was ‘personally prepared to authorise a nuclear strike that could kill 100,000 innocent men, women and children’. But PMQs is a different sort of session in the Chamber – and as May showed during the referendum when she fell silent rather than campaigning enthusiastically for Remain, even very serious politicians play games.
Comments