At the beginning she looked so purposeful and powerful. Not any more. Veteran Tory grandee Ken Clarke has described Theresa May’s regime at Number Ten as ‘a government without policies’ and ‘not having a clue’ over what to do about Brexit. There is mounting anxiety internationally about where GB is trying to go. Nissan has announced postponement of its decision to build a new model at its Sunderland plant until it can see what the relationship between this country and the single market is likely to be.
Comments by Brexit ministers are conflicting, confusing and often slapped down by May, who nevertheless offers no clear direction. The speech by Liam Fox, the new International Trade Secretary (sounds good), offered little more than waffle and at times was plain silly. The idea that we could both leave the single market and all its conditions, yet retain a trading relationship on as good, or better terms than currently as members, is as unrealistic as a proposal to sunbathe in the rain.
Politically perhaps more damaging domestically, is the grammar schools expansion plan for which there is a majority neither in the country, nor in parliament, although it will transport a section of the upcoming Tory conference into a state of ecstasy. The mounting chaos in the child abuse inquiry which, after two years and now on its fourth Chair and which yesterday lost both its Senior Counsel and its leading Junior Counsel in shock resignations, forced May to defend the whole thing on television. She was the Home Secretary who set it up.
Next week’s Tory conference will be critical. Either the country will be given some clear direction as to what to prepare for, and take advantage of, in the unprecedented mess into which Cameron led it by mistake, or it will become clear that the only thing the top echelons of the Tory party is really good at, gold medal standard, is stabbing each other in the back.