Theresa May’s plain style is a blessed relief

Mrs May’s plain style may well come to irritate people in a few months, but just now it is extremely popular. The lack of glamour, soundbites, smart clothes, and ministerial overclaiming is a blessed relief. I can’t pretend that I find Mrs May an endearing figure, but when she said in her speech that Britain should not go round saying ‘We are punching above our weight’ (a phrase beloved of the Foreign Office), I almost wanted to hug her. There isn’t even much party knockabout. In the old days, any speech which made some pathetic jibe against ‘the brothers last week in Blackpool’ could be guaranteed laughter and applause. Now Labour is scarcely mentioned, and Jeremy Corbyn, though undoubtedly the most unintentionally comic figure ever to have led the Labour party, is passed over in silence.

This is an extract from Charles Moore’s Notes, which first appeared in this week’s Spectator magazine.