What on earth is Theresa May up to? The Prime Minister seemed to have successfully calmed things down in the Tory party following her disastrous snap election. But now she has thrown everything wide open again by telling reporters that she would like to fight the next election and that she is her ‘for the long term’.
The ‘do you want to fight the next election’ question is a tricky one for Prime Ministers to answer. Say ‘no’ and you become a lame duck. Normally saying ‘yes’ makes more sense, even if you’re secretly planning to scarper before there is another campaign. But May had already cast herself as a lame duck, albeit one who was very keen to serve and clear up the mess she’d made for as long as was necessary. One of her best moves was to tell the Conservative 1922 Committee straight after the election that ‘I got us into this mess and I’ll get us out’ and that she would serve ‘as long as you want me to’.
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