13 April 2017
The Luck Of Mrs May
A fairy tale.
By Robert Kilconner
“I feel sorry for Mrs May”. The speaker was a wise friend who is usually right and to whom I always listen. Naturally, I nodded in agreement and felt sorry for Mrs May too. It must be awful, when you think about it. Difficult problems on every side, friends and enemies to control and never really knowing which is which, traitors in Scotland with daggers in their socks, Remoaners prowling the streets of Westminster clutching weighted prosecco bottles, headbangers calling for “no deal” without any idea of the implications, and this is before you have even crossed the Channel to wrestle with the ungodly on the other side. The fate of nations hangs in the balance. You are surrounded by impossible people taking implausable positions for sordid personal reasons, and all you can do is to plough on and try to sort it all out sensibly. Yes, that is “uneasy lies the head that wears the crown”, with a vengeance. Poor woman. I wept into my beer with the pity of the thing.
It wasn’t until I woke up that I realised what piffle we had both been talking. Look at where Mrs May was 12 months ago. She had a good record as Home Secretary but there was no real prospect of her going further, her dry and cautious approach being out of sync with the national mood. There she would end up, a minor footnote known only to history buffs, a lesser figure than Rab Butler, Roy Jenkins or even Henry Brooke (yes, Home Secretary 1962 – 1964, see what I mean). And then suddenly, poof, the transformation. Enter the good fairy in the unlikely shape of Nigel Farage. “You shall go to the ball Theresa,” he said, and he turned out to be as good as his word. A short ride in a gilded coach to Downing Street where fame, or if she fails, notoriety, waited.
Of course it is all very daunting but Mrs May is a professional politician and, as such, she must always have longed to have the opportunity to test her talents at the highest level. Top card players do not want easy hands. They want difficult and complicated ones which will show what they’re made of. Top chess players do not want easy matches. They want to play against the world’s best. Not many of us get the opportunity to live our dream in this way. Churchill did, of course. The role of war leader, drafted in when all looked bleak, suited him to a T. Others too from different walks of life get the opportunity to test their talents at the top table. How much more fulfilling, how much more exciting, than to descend into old age with that terrible word “if” still hovering over your head.
Who knows whether Mrs May will succeed or fail, whether she will be regarded as the saviour of her country or as someone who was simply not good enough to rescue it from the imbroglio in which it had become enmeshed? History will tell us that one day, and it may not tell us until years after she and we are all dead. From her point of view, however, that is not the real point. She has been given the opportunity to apply her abilities in the most difficult circumstances and where it really matters. Not many politicians get that chance, certainly not at this level. For better or for worse she will have her place in the history books. Whatever the final verdicts on her efforts, one thing is sure. Mrs May is a very lucky woman.
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