Will Theresa “Nasty Party” May be a nice Prime Minister?

Theresa May has the Big Mo, or at least the Big Moo. It will be hard to prevent her from becoming the leader of the Tory party: almost as hard as it is to warm to her. There is an old adage: “no friendships at the top”. In Mrs May’s case, it should be modified: no friendships at the middle or bottom either.

This is a woman who appears to be made of ice. Few of her fellow Cabinet ministers like her. Over the years, in the Shadow Cabinet and then the Cabinet as Home Secretary, she has had a lot of junior ministers. Yet it is hard to find a single one who speaks well of her. The same message is endlessly repeated. Always suspicious and insecure, she believed that her juniors should be seen and not heard – and not even seen, if favourable publicity was involved. That was for her.

Blame was another matter. Any of her ministers who ran into trouble would be clear on one point. They could not rely on her. The same was true of officials. She distrusted anyone with flair, originality or imagination. For much of the time, she would shut herself in her office with two special advisors, Fiona Cunningham and Nicholas Timothy. The two of them repoertedly communicated with the rest of the department by terse requests for fact-checking, or by rude e-mails.

That is no way to run a government department. It helps to explain why the Home Office has failed in its most obvious task: to limit non-EU immigration. But if her Home Office was demoralised and dysfunctional, what happens when she is in charge of the entire government? Could she lead a government, or a country?‎ What about Margaret Thatcher, Mrs May’s defenders will say? Surely she terrorised colleagues? Yes, but there was a profound difference. Mrs Thatcher was passionate and patriotic. Because of that, she was able to revive the animal spirits of Middle Britain. Certainly, she was difficult to work for but she did not mistrust those around her because they were able. Most of them came to realise that it was always possible to disagree with her, as long as you had your arguments worked out. They also knew that once she respected them, she would be on their side. You would need to search the Home Office repeatedly to find an official who felt respected by Theresa May.

It is likely that the next few months will be difficult. A lot of the public will lack confidence in the country’s future and will want to believe that the person in charge cares about them. Hardly any other member of David Cameron’s Cabinet would be worse at dealing with an anxious public.

Over the past 48 hours, she has shown her character and indeed excelled herself. Even in the midst of dismay or chaos, almost everyone at the top of British politics agreed on one point: the need to reassure EU nationals already here that they had nothing to fear. Theresa was not interested in reassuring anybody. She was unmoved by the worries which those who had come here to work might be feeling. She merely saw the chance to win over some Brexiters who doubted her credentials. It is sickening stuff.

Sickening – and cynical. During the campaign, she did as little as possible to help the Remain cause. Calculating that it would prevail, she wanted to keep the road open to winning Brexit votes in the post-Cameron Leadership race. That was squalid. When it comes to political integrity, there is little to choose between Theresa May and Boris Johnson.

Mrs May once said that people regarded the Tories as the ‘nasty party’. Even at the time, a fair number of Tories thought: “speak for yourself”. I cannot think of a more mean-spirited PM in ‎British history. Even before she has got the job she might have written her own political epitaph: “The nasty Prime Minister.'”