When Theresa May launched what she called ‘my manifesto’ just over a month ago, she batted away questions about whether it was a Mayite document. But this was faux-modesty. The manifesto was a deliberate move away from traditional Tory thinking. May and her team believed that her own standing with the public meant that she could pull off this shift without proper consultation with her Cabinet.
But now, with her authority shot, May cannot try and do this. The Queen’s Speech didn’t include many of the Mayite policies that she had stood on in the general election. If it was not for the Brexit legislation, this would have been a very thin Queen’s Speech. As one Cabinet Minister who was sceptical of the manifesto puts it, ‘Government is about what you don’t do, as well as what you do.
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