Anyone think May is coming across as a dictator?

[3amEternal]

I am worried about her decision making, 'I'm in charge now' autocracy and lack of critical thinking. This whole schools green paper that she put her name to, for example. It was completely based on her own rose tinted memories of being at grammar school and flew in the face of all the very clear evidence suggesting grammar schools were not the way forward. But now it has to go ahead because 'Teresa said so'.
Is she going to ignore all the evidence suggesting hard brexit will be a disaster for the economy just so she can continue her vendetta against immigrants and her own interpretation (again based on no evidence) about why people voted leave (apparently it was definitely about immigration- despite many of the areas voting leave having few immigrants and some voting remain having many- but people did not vote because of promises about the NHS, where did you get that from?)
I'm suspecting that her critical thinking skills are not great and she's an autocrat. Basically Donald Trump in a twin set and pearls.

[RortyCrankle]

I'm guessing you aren't a Conservative voter so you would disagree with whatever she did. I think she is doing very well as PM, totally agree with her re grammar schools and Brexit (welI I would because I voted Leave). My reasons had very little to do with immigration (nor funding for the NHS) and would like to see any links you have regarding her 'vendetta' on immigrants.

I can see absolutely no comparisons in policies or personalities between her and Trump so think your last comment is absurd.

Are you a misogynist by any chance?

[missmoon]

I agree that the current government are coming across and undemocratic. Given the very small margin of victory in the referendum, a successful Brexit requires openness and consensus, and at the very least a proper debate in parliament. Not secrecy surrounding talks and positions, and even worse, secrecy as to why they think they have a right to use the royal prerogative in activating article 50.

[Corcory]

Missmoon - Why on earth do you think Brexit requires openness and not secrecy surrounding talks. The very last thing we need to know is exactly what our negotiating team are doing. I'm sure we would all love to be in the know but surely these are negotiations and we certainly don't want the EU negotiators to know what our red lines are that would just be mad.
I would think that they will go in with a hard Brexit stance and take negotiations from there. We would more than likely end up with a much softer Brexit but we really must start out strong and see where we go from there.
Where is the secrecy in the reasons for the royal prerogative? You just need to google it and you will find out what the government stance on it is. They have no need to get into an argument about it. There are court cases coming up with regard to this and I'm sure the government will cover their reasons for stating that the law is that they don't need a parliamentary vote to enact it.

Although I voted leave I do not agree with TM about Grammar schools. I feel they divide the school population unnecessarily and put pupils who didn't pass an exam at 11 into a second class system.

[RBeer]

I believe people should be aware that May , like Corbyn, were reluctant remainders. May, out of political expediency and Corbyn out of conviction.
So May is quite happy to go along with a hard Brexit as it suits her political ambition. And that is the sorry truth.
If people are looking for some kind of bargaining with May at the helm, we will be solely disappointed. Like a bad movie with a bad ending, it is a bad movie with a bad ending.

[gonetoseeamanaboutadog]

I think May is PM right now because most male politicians value their egos too much to be the Brexit scapegoat.

No, she isn't a dictator. She didn't come in with a mandate she chose. She came in to the do the job she had been given. Which, at the time, was a proper Brexit.

I don't think that will change unless it becomes very clear that her instructions are out of date.

[gonetoseeamanaboutadog]

*She came in to do the job she was given.

[gonetoseeamanaboutadog]

I also don't know where you're getting the lack of critical thought from. I suspect you don't like her critical analysis and the conclusions she's coming to. Which is different. But don't pretend there's no rational basis for the other side of an argument. Calling her Donald Trump in a twinset and pearls just for that...over the line!

[Peregrina]

May isn't doing the 'job she was given'. She chose to stand for leadership, it having been her ambition for many, many years. Loathe as I am to agree with Osborne, she was the best candidate out of a poor field. Time will tell whether she has chosen to grasp a poisoned chalice.

She has now chosen, it would appear, to make immigration the main plank of her Brexit. She could have chosen to attempt to steal Labour's clothes on this one, and champion the NHS, but she has chosen not to. She has IMO chosen to listen to the UKIP wing of her party.

So less of this, 'doing the job she was given'.

[ChickenSalad]

No, I don't. I'm not a Conservative voter but think she is doing very well.

[Peregrina]

BoJo, don't forget, as the heir apparent, completely bottled it. Conveniently having Gove to blame as a backstabber.

What exactly do you think May is doing, ChickenSalad, apart from denying everything that comes out of the mouths of Johnson, Fox and Davis?

[Longlost10]

No, I don't think she is behaving like a dictator. i think she is behaving like a leader. I suppose that by "lack of critical thinking" you mean you disagree with her??? That has nothing what so ever to do with critical thinking. I am not a tory, and have no particularly strong feelings about grammar schools, but I think personal abuse is a weak and lazy form of political argument, and people who indulge in it clearly have nothing real to say. I don't know an awful lot about May, tbh, having just come back from being abroad, but I do know quite a lot about you, from the whole tone of your post, OP, and none of it is complimentary.

[gonetoseeamanaboutadog]

pere All due respect but you're wrong. May didn't get elected with a mandate she chose. In that respect her circumstances suck and we know very little about what she would have chosen to make the key themes of her time in office, had she been able to put them to the public and get elected to carry them out in the usual way. It's true that she wanted to be Pm but, as I'm sure Boris could tell you, there's wanting to be elected PM on the strength of your own election campaign and there's being shoved into the role because the present PM doesn't see why he should bother with shit.

May didn't campaign for Brexit, she would have preferred we were not leaving but she is doing the job she was given as a result of the ref and getting us out. We all know perfectly well that the sticking points in negotiating the terms of this are access to the single market and the free movement of people (not the NHS); these would have been the issues regardless of who got this thankless task.

To say May has chosen to make these the issues is bizarre. They have headlined the debate from day one. How much we plough back into the NHS has nothing to do with the terms of brexit and consequently is not going to be top of the discussion list, especially as we haven't left yet so this mythical cash wouldn't be around yet in any case.

[Oblomov16]

I think she's doing an ok job. I don't agree with her grammar schools, but I don't consider her a dictator.

[Peregrina]

Gotosee none of your arguments convince me that I am wrong. May did not have to stand for election. End of. Gove, to give him his due, chose to, and personally, I wish he had got further.

Many people thought they were voting for the NHS. They weren't, but it doesn't make the issue go away.

[Mistigri]

I think (as a definitely-not-Tory) that she is doing a decent job of leading her party - she has inherited a party that is in reality far more split than the Labour party on fundamental policy issues, but which she is managing to hold together somehow. I'm still not sure whether her decision to appoint the three brexiteers was a good one, but at the moment it is working: it's keeping the loony wing quiet, and she still has enough public support to feel confident that she can slap them down as required.

What worries me - and should worry leave voters too, if they are genuinely concerned about democracy - is that in order to keep Tory policy splits out of the public eye she is having to give full reign to her natural authoritarian bent. The refusal to contenance parliamentary oversight of the Brexit process is profoundly undemocratic; we don't have direct democracy, we gave a representative democracy and parliament - not government, and definitely not referendum results - is sovereign.

[gonetoseeamanaboutadog]

You're very naive if you think that's May's fault. pere. But I get that you need a scape goat.

[Peregrina]

Why is it naive? May is choosing her policies. So far she is appeasing her right wing. The Conservative party manifesto had a commitment to the Single Market - albeit couched in vague terms, but she has not chosen to thrown her weight behind that one.

She has chosen to publish a Green paper on Education, proposing to bring back Grammar schools. That didn't even make it into the manifesto. She could just as easily have chosen to publish a Green paper on the Health service, which she knows to be a key issue for the public. She hasn't chosen to do so.

If she is not choosing her policies, then who, tell me, is?

[gonetoseeamanaboutadog]

pere It's naive because May has, on the whole, less choice about what her period in power will be about than any PM has probably ever had.

She is basically doing Boris and Gove's dirty work for them. They created the Leave campaign, with its promises in relation to the NHS and its shameless links to racism and bigotry. They tied the concept of Brexit up with immigration issues and increasing funding for the NHS, thereby setting up raised expectations that cannot now be met, either at this point or when Brexit finally happens. May didn't do this, yet you are now looking at what she is doing as a politician and apparently feeling she ought to be bringing home some of the Leave campaign promises, such as doing something about NHS funding! Meanwhile you feel it's a pity that Gove (who actually is much more responsible for making undeliverable promises and consequently much more deserving of your scorn) didn't get into power.

Surely you cannot think that Gove would have coughed up this extra funding for the NHS right now if he was in power??

Brexit was not May's idea or campaign so she has actually no mandate to deliver anything. She doesn't even have to deliver Brexit, so there really are no grounds for feeling like you haven't got what you paid for with her.

Usually, politicians are elected on the strength of their own promises; she has been elected on the strength of promises she made it known she didn't even buy into, and a policy she didn't personally feel would profit the country. And it's not a by-the-by mandate either; it's the biggest thing that could happen to Britain and the defining feature of the next decade for Britain and for period of duty. Anything else that she may accomplish of her choosing during her time as PM will be incidental.

[gonetoseeamanaboutadog]

she has been put in power rather than she has been elected

[0pti0na1]

I'm not a Tory voter, but think Theresa May is doing very well so far. Considering it's only 20 days (including weekends) since the end of parliament's summer recess, I think she's doing a fantastic job.

May is showing strong leadership and keeping a cool head, despite all the recent political shake-ups. I think if a man was doing this no-one would describe him as like a dictator. I'm relieved to see May has made a fresh start without Cameron's cronies.

[Peregrina]

You have made a lot of assumptions about what I think gonetosee. However, since May did accept the challenge of being Leader, then yes, I think she should be trying to make good on the Leave 'promises'. I think whoever accepted the challenge should try to do so. You could see the official Leave campaign's promises as the nearest thing they got to setting out a manifesto.

Gove IMO is a total disaster but I would have liked to have seen him have more of a role in sorting out the mess he has helped to make.

[Nonewnameideas]

May is playing the cards she was dealt with, and it's a really, really poor hand. I don't like her as a politician, but I honestly can't see anyone in Westminster doing a better job at the moment. I'm just hoping she doesn't do anything we can't easily undo by the time someone comes up with an electable, progressive centre-left political framework.

[RedToothBrush]

May is coming across as someone who has not control of her own party and hasn't got a clue of what she wants.

[smallfox2002]

I think May is taking advantage of the situation.

All the noises coming out of Whitehall is that there will be a hard brexit, which appeases her party, but there isn't a mandate for.

The grammar schools thing appeases her party too.

She's doing populist things for the blue rinse brigade and getting away with it because the Labour party have been in turmoil. Basically its to consolidate her power.

She could be said to be behaving dictatorially in her use of the royal prerogative to force Brexit through. Funny that all the Brexiteers like Rorty say they voted because of democracy and sovereignty are supportive of this.

[Bearbehind]

I think people underestimate the extent of May's ego.

BoJo, for all his faults, realised the PM's job was a poison chalice.

Anyone willing to take that on, despite the biggest thing on the agenda being something she didn't even agree with, is a very dangerous character IMO.

Dictator is a little extreme for now but when you spend a disproportionate amount of time contradicting and apologising for the words of your, personally appointed, most senior team, one has to question how much say anyone else will get.