When he was asked what kind of generals he wanted, Napoleon replied ‘lucky ones’. Theresa May certainly fits into that category, as I say in The Sun this morning. In the Tory leadership race her two main rivals, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, destroyed each other leaving her facing Andrea Leadsom who promptly blew herself up. In this election, she is facing a Labour leader who has abandoned both the centre ground and patriotism.
Now, May has skilfully exploited these openings—just look at how she is pitching to those abandoned Labour voters. But, perhaps, most relevant for the next five years is how there is no Tory alternative to her.
For May is trying to change the Tory party, to move it towards the centre. Her Tory party will be one less preoccupied with the concerns of traditional Tory voters—business, the elderly, the better off—and more interested in reaching out to the ‘just about managing’ classes.
Normally, a leader trying to change their party faces internal resistance. Those who worried about where Tony Blair was taking Labour rallied around Gordon Brown, for instance. But there is no alternative Tory power centre to May. As one Cabinet Minister puts it, ‘David Davis is the only one who could cause her any trouble and he isn’t interested in doing that’.
Every Tory leader since Thatcher has tried to change the party. But May will be the leader with the time and the mandate to do it. As what she called ‘my manifesto’ showed, she intends to pass on a very different Tory party from the one she inherited.
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