To feel sorry for Theresa May

[thinkiamgoingcrazy]

I think she has been an awful PM: evasive / divisive / arrogant / authoritarian / sneering / dog whistling.

I am glad that she no longer has a majority, hopefully allowing more voice to the many and diverse opinions in the oppositions as well as in the moderate wing of the Tory party.

I am also glad that we are apparently going back to government by cabinet meeting rather than by advisers (probable overstatement I know).

And yet I feel sorry for her . Now a puppet at the mercy of her ruthless party.

She reminds me of Glenn Close at the end of Dangerous Liaisons.

I read the FT. They just before the election came out in support of May as indeed I think did the Evening Standard.

May was in charge. If the campaign by Crosby or whatever he is called and her advisers was wrong she could have insisted on change. She wanted to ditch strong and stable but Crosby refused. She I am sure takes full responsibility.

But we need to remember she had more support and more votes than just about any leader of either party for 20 years or something remarkable not that the press seem to mention that!

Her supporters keep mentioning that. Whilst conveniently not mentioning that the electorate has grown since then.

They have mentioned it. Jeremy vine pointed it out on Friday how well she did really. Makes me think all this talk of a labour victory in the future is a bit misguided. 50 odd seats to take is a huge amount still despite them doing well.

She had more votes because more votes were cast overall, surely? I don't think she had a bigger share of the vote ... less in fact.

I do feel a bit sorry for her on the fields of wheat thing. That was a no win question. It's like a teaching interview where someone throws a completely unconnected and random question at you. You want to tell them to fuck off, but you can't. Who was it in a previous election who wouldn't answer the favourite biscuit question? That's a similar thing (but easier). I have no idea what ''safe' answer she could possibly have given to that question!

The press don't mention it because it doesn't matter. She's fucked up her own party and they won't forgive her.

I'm finding the vitriol directed at Theresa May by some posters really unsettling.

Why has she become the scapegoat for the behaviour of politicians since, you know, forever?

She has manoeuvred! She used sound bites! She was motivated by power! So she,is a dreadful person and deserves utter humiliation and gloating, according to some posters.

Because no other politician has ever done those things, have they? Especially not male politicians.

This site is primarily used by women. I find it chilling that women are so keen to stick the knife into a female politician for doing things that most politicians do and have always done. It feels like a blood sport. A bit like people singing, 'ding, dong the witch is dead' when Margaret Thatcher died. It's just distasteful. Be happy if your party did better than you hoped, by all means, but don't stoop to spite.

I didn't vote Tory in my Tory constituency, but I would like her to carry on as prime minister. Yes, I feel sorry for her. Particularly when I see people like George Osborne putting the boot into the leader of his own party. Shame on him.

I have absolutely no sympathy.

And, actually, I'm quite enjoying watching the the press whose support she enjoyed so much during the election turn and sink their teeth into her for a change.

I don't care if that makes me a shitty person either.

Doing the math, jc would need about65 extra seats to get over the line. That's a big task from now.

I agree about the bashing she has got. She is human and it must hurt. Especially from ex fellow tories!

She was not totally stupid to call the election, in fact at the time no-one foresaw anything other than a Tory landslide.

When she called it, after insisting that she wouldn’t numerous times, she grumbled that she hadn’t got support from the Opposition but she sensed that the country was behind her. The lack of support from the Opposition was arrant nonsense which she must have known – they had given her an extremely easy ride, instead of insisting on amendments being passed. A wiser person would have counted their blessings at this point. As for the country being behind her, she sensed wrong, or she would have had her 80 plus majority now.

Given she has only been an MP for 20 years, she is obviously effective at what she does to reach the upper echelons of the Tory party so quickly.

This is nonsense. Blair had 11 years in Parliament before he became Labour leader, Cameron had 4. In part there has to be a vacancy for the Leadership, but she had already been in Parliament for 8 years when Cameron took over, so why didn’t she get it then?

I found aspects of my job as a teacher distasteful and difficult... but I consistently got the best GCSE results in the department.

Exactly – you delivered the goods. May finds key parts of the job distasteful and so far has not been able to deliver the goods.

13.6 million voters wanted the Tory party to run the country. They knew she was going to be at the helm - just because the party lost a few seats it doesn't mean folk changed their mind!!!

16 million of us voted Remain. We were basically told to get lost. No, most of us haven’t changed our minds either, although initially we thought we had another Remainer at the helm.

Corbyn got a higher percentage of the vote than Blair in 2001 and 2005.
Higher than anyone since Attlee in 1945.

I'd be aiming the same level of 'vitriol' at any male politician who'd displayed this amount of arrogance for the British people as I am at her!

I think it's insulting to say we shouldn't be as critical because she's a delicate laydee. Go back a few years and read what was written about David Cameron on here. The fact she has a vagina doesn't come into it.

I don't feel sorry for her at all. People have killed themselves because of this horrible government! They do nothing for the UK and are entirely self serving.

As for May, her arrogance and hubris seems to have caused her to have a most uncertain grip on reality. She's brought this on herself completely. Pride always comes before a fall. In the UK we tend not to like arrogant people who think debating is beneath them when it's something as important as running the country.

Nettletheelf. Yes, it's not good is it.
Someone even saying TM has no compassion because she never had children - on a site with 1000's of women struggling to conceive.
It's sickening really.

I agree the labour party has won nothing yet and they still have it all to do. I think they're going to have to win back Scotland, which won't be easy as both Sturgeon and Davidson are formidable.

Because no other politician has ever done those things, have they?
Actually no, I cannot think of another politician who's called an election when they still had three years to run and a working majority, never mind one who's pissed away a 20 point lead. Can you?

I find it chilling that women are so keen to stick the knife into a female politician for doing things that most politicians do and have always done.

There's nothing chilling about it. She's fucked up in a monumental way and she deserves all the flack she's getting.

I think they're going to have to win back Scotland, which won't be easy as both Sturgeon and Davidson are formidable.

Sturgeon had a disastrous election night too. She's certainly not down and out but she and her party have a long road back to where they were in the 2015 election.

Flo - Scotland is a left wing country on the whole. Ruth D sells a kind of soft conservatism, The SNP went left and now JC and co have gone left from them. Labour won 7 seats at the election and had a big swing to them in many parts of the country. Labour is on the way back in Scotland. Big time.

I feel sorry for her in the sense that she was pretty much shoehorned into the role of PM and she wasn't ready for it.

I cannot feel sorry for her about recent events. She called the election out of arrogance and to make Corbyn/Labour look like a laughing stock, and it backfired. She deserves everything she gets now tbh.

That's true - Sturgeon may have had her moment although I think she's smart and resiliant. I still think it's do-able for the labour party but a big ask.

Anyway I hope you're right about Scotland but I don't think labour should minimise the task.

The fact that she's a woman or hasn't had children are entirely irrelevant and nobody should be even bringing up those things. Her brand of politics is what I find despicable.

Some of the SNP holds were won by very small margins, 40 votes or so. In one constituency in Edinburgh I believe the SNP MP won by two votes! So not only they did they lose a big chunk of their seats it also seems some of the ones they held are far from being safe.

I don't think the Scottish Labour leader is particularly inspiring. Whatever resurgence there was is more likely to be down to the Corbyn effect. And the 'I don't want another ref' effect.

I know it's off topic of TM slightly. But to continue the thoughts on Scotland : I can see a fair swathe of SNP voters ditching that party if there was another election and they thought they could help to get the Tories out/ create a Labour government,

As English politicians often learn , the Scottish voter can be an asset and an ally!