‘Worst week ever’ is one of those phrases that journalists are, perhaps, too quick to use. Alastair Campbell once quipped that if you added up all Tony Blair’s worst weeks, you got a full year. The real worry for the Tories, however, is not that last week was Theresa May’s worst ever, but that it represented the new normal.
Even inside Downing Street, there are those who worry that leadership plotting and the like will continue until Mrs May leaves the building. They worry that while they are strong enough to repel the plotters — as they did so effectively this time — she isn’t powerful enough to take back control. So the whole cycle will continue, with the rebels coming back for another crack every time the Prime Minister looks vulnerable.
The optimists in her cabinet believe that if the Brexit talks have moved on to trade and transition by December, May will find it easier to assert herself domestically.
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