ITV’s documentary, hastily pulled forward ahead of the general election, did draw the former PM on the naughtiest thing she’s ever done
Theresa May has chosen not to stand for re-election
Does Theresa May get PTSD whenever an election is called? Seven confusing and largely horrible years ago she went out on the stump with a lordly lead in the polls and returned to a hung parliament. “I made some mistakes during the election campaign,” she forced herself to concede in Theresa May: The Accidental Prime Minister (ITV1).
What those mistakes were, and how they might have been avoided, are not things she was forced to contemplate in this profile, rushed into the schedule before May leaves the House of Commons for the last time. We do know that Chris Wilkins, her head of strategy, is “still angry” at the tone-deafness of her U-turn over the policy dubbed the dementia tax.
“I think that drove a coach and horses through her brand,” he simmered. It’s never quite clear from this portrait what May’s brand is or was, beyond a belief in probity and a commitment to service, plus a large collection of cookbooks.
Why accidental? Because in 2016 every other senior Tory punched himself in the face until only two women were left standing, one of whom accused the other of childlessness. And then there was one. “I thought it was an unfortunate thing to say,” ventured May, characteristically tight-lipped, of Andrea Leadsom’s tin ear.
Then there were the other accidents. Terrible ones in the shape of Grenfell and Windrush, each covered carefully here within the time constraints. But also the comical ones symbolising collapse – the sore throat portending a voiceless government, those dance shapes suggesting a leader who’d run out of moves.
Those things that made May a catastrophic frontwoman on the stump – shyness, stiffness, baffled refusal to accept that her private feelings are anyone else’s business – also make her a parsimonious subject for this sort of profile. She doesn’t do gossip, and gossip oils the genre’s wheels. Whether or not you’re a fan, it was helpful to have Sajid Javid, Amber Rudd and Suella Braverman saying things she wouldn’t.
A young Theresa May
You waited in vain for the story of May tearing a strip off a leaky minister or icing a pesky Europhobe. Instead, as all around her plotted and stabbed and marauded, she confined herself to hints and winks to convey how she really felt. “I don’t normally comment on my successor,” she twinkled, as her Foreign Secretary followed David Davis out of government. “I’m not in Boris’s mind,” she added with the merest miaow, “but I think it was interesting it was after David.”
Those who worked with her behind the scenes seemed civil and loyal and perhaps a little exasperated. Her media adviser confessed to a sinking feeling when May talked about running through wheat fields.
“The naughtiest thing I’ve done,” she now says, “is answering that question.” She’s learned her lesson and treats all questions as an undetonated IED. Perhaps we’ll glimpse the real hinterland if Baroness May of Maidenhead were to go on Celebrity MasterChef and do more than cook her own goose.