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.

Read the thread, we are aware that they won it all despite everything.

They are about the party, Floisme. You do have to admire the spin.
It was the same when Margaret Thatcher 'resigned'. Superbly managed. I genuinely mean that. It was only when she was being driven away that the mask slipped and a photographer caught it.

Yes, they are a well oiled machine.

twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/874302940680511490

Good to see she seems to have found her magic money tree to help 'the fallen'

she stopped funding the boat that was rescuing refugees in the Mediterranean. How can anyone be so devoid of ordinary human compassion? It was absolutely chilling.

Well said, Hackmum. I don't feel sorry for her at all, I am just really glad she may soon be gone!

There was a picture of her yesterday, coming out of church, and she looked dreadful, all puffy- eyed and face with extra-thick makeup, like she'd not slept for days. . For a brief moment I felt some human compassion but I got over it quickly. I wonder what she has to say to her god these days.

Who needs God when you have the 1922 committee?

That article's a bit flowery but I would say the gist of it is about right: that they banged their desks, shook her by the hand, handed her a loaded revolver and sent her back to Downing St to await instructions. They could come next week or it could be two years.

Yes I feel sorry for her too. But I seem to be in a very small minority these days - people who are open minded enough to feel compassion for people despite their politics.

Is it possible to feel sorry for her as a person who has been humiliated, but divorce that from her role as PM? As PM she is totally the architect of her own humiliation, and given the way she has voted on numerous issues, or the statements she has made publicly - like telling a nurse there is no magic money tree, when money was readily available to finance a visit of Trump for example, then it's very difficult to feel any sympathy.

i don't get why anyone would feel sorry for her. she made her bed.

The funny thing is, my loathing of Margaret Thatcher was off the scale yet I still felt sorry for her when she was forced out and again when her husband died. Maybe that's because, once she stepped down, I was able to see her as a person. I still see Theresa May as a politician and a very dangerous one at that - think what her queen's speech would have been like had she won a working majority. Maybe that's a failing on my part but that's how it is.

You cannot feel an ounce of compassion for someone who was cold and callous in her plans for many others.

This was someone who was protected by the toxic bullies - her two aides - to the extent that others could not even speak freely when they were in Downing Street.

And then, to compound it all, the poisonous pair and May's unelected husband decided on what would be what during cosy informal get togethers.

I am utterly disgusted by their behaviour.

I am a Thatcher and May supporter but like Flois I also often feel sorry for politician - I think the way Dianne D and Corbyn (and May of course) were treated in the media was absolutely dreadful. We should always concentrate on policies not people.

is Theresa May a bully?

i don't loath her, I have only ever loathed scameron.(obviously I loathe hitler and such like)
but May is just insipid and unlikable. she doesn't deserve my sympathy as she does not have to do that job, she can leave at any time.

Or the victims of the 140 MPs whose files implicating them in child sexual abuse she 'lost' while she was home secretary.

I think you're probably overstating my compassion Mary but thank you

But I've been thinking about this and I've come to the conclusion that, to empathise with a politician I dislike, there has to be something I can hook into. So I detested Margaret Thatcher but I could connect with her patent adoration for Mark, her idle, entitled knobhead of a son who embodied so many of the things she claimed to detest. Some people saw that as hypocritical but I found it quite endearing - it made me smile. Likewise Trump, appalling as I find him, somehow strikes me as an overgrown child so when he gets his comeuppance (as I'm sure he will if he doesn't blow us all up first) I can imagine I might pity him.

With Theresa May, there are things I should be able to connect with: not being able to have children (I have one but would have liked more) or her love of clothes. We're even the same age and yet all I can see is a deeply unpleasant politician and a wounded one at that - and they're the most dangerous of all.

So erm, still a 'no'.