How to explain Theresa May’s resilience? As Prime Minister, she has survived mishaps and calamities that would have finished off her predecessors. She has no shortage of rebels keen to succeed or denounce her, but all seem oddly unable to act. Why? The answer might lie in a group messaging service which seems to have disabled the ancient art of the Tory coup: WhatsApp.
Tory backbenchers are so addicted to this app that these days they cannot tear themselves away from their screens. It gives them the impression of being plugged into each other’s lives, when the opposite is true. Where MPs would once have met to scheme and gossip, they now send bad-tempered encrypted messages. WhatsApp allows MPs to stay informed in their offices and bedrooms rather than in the Strangers’ Bar. The result: no real-life relationships are created and the plots rarely get further than people typing words into their phones.
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