Theresa May’s exhaustion makes more blunders inevitable

Theresa May’s body language on leaving the European Council summit last night shows quite how much of a toll the past few weeks have taken on the Prime Minister. She looks exhausted. Now, you don’t have to feel sorry for May: she did, after all, decide to call the snap election that has proved to be her undoing – even though so many people thought she would be mad not to call it with the Labour party appearing to be so weak. But it is worth noting that the most important people in government – and the most important people involved in the attempts to keep the government together – are all totally exhausted and that this exhaustion inevitably has an impact on the way government works.

In the fortnight since the election result, Number 10 has lost key advisers including May’s top aides Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill. Their departure was the price of the Prime Minister hanging on, but it will have left her without some of the people she trusts the most: and May is not someone who learns to trust quickly.