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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To admire Theresa May

259 replies

Imsosorryalan75 · 21/09/2018 22:14

As a woman. I don't agree with her policies and brexit strategies but I do think she is an amazingly strong and powerful figure, with the confidence to stick to her beliefs, even in the face of such negativity! That takes guts!
Watching her in Brussels surrounded by a crowd of important men, I did think good on her for standing up to them. Anyone agree?
She gets a lot of negative press and i never hear of her being shown as a role model for women.

OP posts:
headstone · 23/09/2018 18:33

Corbyn is leaning towards a second referendum. It maybe Labours only chance of grabbing power.

SusanWalker · 23/09/2018 18:37

We do not want Sajid. It was reported this week that in the event of an economic crisis after a no deal brexit he is in favour of getting rid of workers rights and environmental protections.

Obi73 · 23/09/2018 18:41

I agree, it takes some guts to do what she does day in day out. To be ridiculed and vilified everyday by someone, somewhere in the world I do wonder how she does it.

FinnegansWhiskers · 24/09/2018 01:21

Another General election
won by Corbyn - pro Brexit
or Johnson - pro Brexit
great

Exactly! But if push comes to shove my vote would go to BJ. Not because I like him but.... Corbyn!!?? No fucking chance!

Princesstwilightsparkle · 24/09/2018 06:35

Can't say I'm a fan as generally I have dissagreed with her politics for a long time BUT that said I think she has been used terribly. I think there are those in the government, namely Boris Johnson, Jacob Rhys-Mogg, Michael Gove have a lot to answer for. They all appear to have loftier ideas for their careers and have allowed her to step in to deal with the shit storm they helped to create. Now she's being criticized for trying to resolve an unworkable model and they are not helping. If I was her I'd of sacked Boris a while ago when he was so clearly an incompetent Foreign Secretary.

Floofsquidge · 24/09/2018 07:12

She is an evil witch. Yes, she's doing a job nobody wanted, but please don't forget that during her tenure as Home Secretary, the "Hostile Environment" immigration policy was her idea. Windrush scandal etc... the blame is entirely at her door.

BabySharkAteMyHamster · 24/09/2018 07:15

I agree.

I'm no Tory supporter but she stepped up when a man threw us off a cliff then skulked off with his tail between his legs.

stopfuckingshoutingatme · 24/09/2018 07:17

Me too

Whilst I veer to the left in light of recent behaviours (boris !) she has shown incredible grit and dignity

I am sure she doesn’t want Brexit either but she gets on with the job without compliant or drama

She strikes me as having a core of steel

stopfuckingshoutingatme · 24/09/2018 07:18

Find me another person who would stick at st this thankless task

fieryginger · 24/09/2018 07:20

Yanbu. I agree op.

Childrenofthesun · 24/09/2018 08:23

She volunteered for the task though! Nobody held a gun to her head. Everyone knew it would be a poisoned chalice which is why Johnson etc al wanted nothing to do with it.

From what I've read about her time in government, she is very reliant on her advisors. I think Nick Timothy pushed her into it. He's gone and now she seems to just be fed some lines that she parrots by rote and doesn't seem to have any particular ideas of her own other than a particular bugbear about immigration.

TheDowagerCuntess · 24/09/2018 08:25

She was so desperate to be PM she didn't fully think through the ramifications.

I honestly don't think you can say this, unless you know the woman personally, and she's actually admitted this to you.

We all knew the ramifications, and if we were in any way unsure, they were driven home clearly in the immediate aftermath.

Cameron scarpering, and the look of sheer horror on Boris's face when the realisation of the result dawned on him. I've never seen someone look so traumatised and ashen.

Remain was supposed to win by a small margin, and he was supposed to swoop in, and say, 'there's enough of a climate for change, you don't have a mandate anymore Cameron, I'm taking over' - he never in a million years actually thought he, or anyone, would have to negotiate and lead Brexit.

That's why they never bothered their arses to come up with a plan.

May knew exactly what the lay of the land was, IMO. How could she not?

puzzledlady · 24/09/2018 09:23

I agree OP. People give her a hard time - she she really is trying her best.

Imagine the alternative - Corbyn. Now that - is the stuff of nightmares.

mostdays · 24/09/2018 10:42

I agree OP. People give her a hard time - she she really is trying her best

Is this is her best she deserves a far harder time than she is getting, because her best is an appalling mixture of arrogance, incompetence and ignorance. All this 'poor Theresa she's trying so hard it really isn't her fault this is so difficult' cant... She chose to go for being PM. She chose to set out red lines that she knew were incompatible with anything other than the disastrous situation we have at present. She called a GE. She decided to get the DUP- the fucking DUP!- to prop up her government after the GE went so badly wrong for her. She does not get to wriggle out of taking the blame for this shitshow when she would take all the credit had she made anything other than a mess of it.

Nat6999 · 24/09/2018 11:05

TM is like the head school bully, using her henchmen & underlings to do all the dirty work while she gives out the orders. Like all bullies she is weak underneath & if her party turned on her would be off like a shot.

Her treatment of the sick, poor & less fortunate has been disgusting, she wants to put them back to the days of the workhouse. Her behaviour over windrush & Grenfell didn't do her any favours, she has no compassion or a caring bone in her body.

The best thing we can hope for is the rumoured snap election in November & then hopefully she can crawl back to whichever hole she came out of & stay there. I was never a fan of Margaret Thatcher but she was a hundred times more of a leader than TM.

Theworldisfullofgs · 24/09/2018 12:33

,she really is trying her best.

I agree she is and her best isn't good enough for a PM.
She can't do ideas, she can't do strategy.
What's she's really good at is detail and procedural implementation of something to the nth degree, regardless of whether it's a good idea or not.
She's not good at appraising risk.
In any other field she wouldn't have got anywhere.
At any other time she wouldn't be PM.

LaurieMarlow · 24/09/2018 12:44

I second everything theworld says. She has her strengths but she's not a leader.

We've never needed a strong leader more than we do at this moment and she's just woefully inadequate. However, it's not like there are lots of better options waiting in the wings, so we're stuck.

TheDowagerCuntess · 24/09/2018 19:27

& if her party turned on her would be off like a shot.

Interesting that there isn't even a whiff of this.

Not a soul wants the gig.

Metalhead · 24/09/2018 20:18

YAB very U. She is an absolute disgrace who would say and do anything to cling onto power.

TheDowagerCuntess · 24/09/2018 20:43

She doesn't need to cling.

Nobody else is in the least bit interested in taking it off her.

Metalhead · 25/09/2018 10:25

Maybe not in the Tory party, though I don’t trust any of their leading figures and what they’re saying either...

Bombardier25966 · 25/09/2018 10:36

Amber Rudd asked that we judge the Tories on their record.

Did anyone see Panorama last night? Thousands of children being refused support for severe mental health conditions, and the few that get accepted have waiting lists of months (for the most severe) and years otherwise.

If you think that's something to admire, you need your head looking at. (Although you'll have to go private as adult mental health services are even worse.)

toomuchtooold · 25/09/2018 10:44

I look at her and see someone who should have stayed in payment services - she started her career at the Bank of England in this very spoddy, attention to detail type role and I bet she was great at it. She strikes me as a grafter, the kind of person who never took naturally to leadership but through her thoroughness and her willingness to plough through whatever hard job she got given and make a good go of it, she's risen in the ranks - as high as you can go - and now she's doing Brexit like it would be just one more unpleasant job. But what we actually need is someone in charge who's learned the emotional skill of saying no thank you and walking away. With Davis and Johnson in "charge" the whole process would be heading towards ignominious failure, no deal crash out, a hasty change of government and a humiliating readmission to the EU in 5 difficult years' time. But she might actually manage it. And it will be shite.

flipflopping · 25/09/2018 10:47

I think she's doing an extremely hard job extremely poorly. She's made a whole raft of errors, largely because she cannot control her own party and so is effectively having to negotiate on two sides. As a result she's entirely failed to manage public expectations of Brexit, she's created pointless red lines designed to mollify her own party that now leave her with no room to negotiate, she's lost any good will that the EU might have had, and that might have made negotiations easier, through weakness, back-tracking and aggressive rhetoric, and she's cemented divisions in the country rather than even trying to bring people together. A disaster.

That said, I feel very sorry for her. She didn't create the dilemma we're facing. Those that did would be making even more of a hash of it than she is, if they were in her shoes. And I just feel sorry for her as a human being- it's very obvious that she knows how bad things are. She's visibly struggling to hold it together. I suspect she'll be dead within six months of leaving the job, frankly.

mypointofview · 25/09/2018 12:06

I think she's doing an extremely hard job extremely poorly.

Yes.