Thursday marks the first anniversary of Theresa May becoming Prime Minister. As I say in The Sun this morning, several of her closest allies regard this as an opportunity to start trying to win back voters’ trust and respect.
May has, by necessity, got rather good at apologising post-election. Her it’s my mess and I’ll get us out of it line to the 1922 Committee staved off an immediate leadership challenge. While her humility at the Tory donors ball at the Hurlingham Club went down well with the party’s money men. But what May hasn’t had is a moment of contrition with the public. She hasn’t yet come up with a moment to erase the memory of her ill-judged speech outside Downing Street straight after the election which suggested that she didn’t realise anything had changed.
May needs to acknowledge that in the election campaign she lost the trust of too much of the country. She then needs to show that she is determined to get it back.
Inside Number 10, there is a view that what people like about Theresa May is that she gets on with the job. So, this week, there’ll be a big emphasis on what she’s doing—trade talks with the Australian PM on Monday, Tuesday’s publication of the Taylor review on new rights for the self-employed and the launch of the repeal bill on Thursday. But May needs to do more than just get on with the job. There must be a mea culpa to the electorate.
If May is to stay until Brexit is done, she needs to do her utmost to patch up her relationship with the electorate. If she doesn’t, her position will become unsustainable and those Tory Ministers and MPs trying to stir up trouble at conference will find it that much easier to persuade people to join them.
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