Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to feel a bit shit for TM?

282 replies

AndWhat · 12/12/2018 08:03

Imagine achieving your life dream of becoming PM, being left to organise a shitstorm and then a load of your staff telling you you’re shit at organising shit and you get voted out.
I don’t think anyone who was brought in to lead brexit following Cameron’s hash up would have done a decent job and yet all TM will be known for is failing to manage brexit!

OP posts:
DeepanKrispanEven · 12/12/2018 08:47

For what it's worth, I blame Cameron for this mess infinitely more than I blame TM. However, she has to take responsibility for her part in the referendum mess, and for appalling failures of judgment such as the last election. She's really only stayed in power because people are rightly horrified by the potential choice of successors.

StealthPolarBear · 12/12/2018 08:47

Having drinky poos with gove and boris

AdamNichol · 12/12/2018 08:47

She fought for a job she wasn't equipped to do

^^This
she has been terrible since the beginning of her premiership. Stuff hasn’t just happened to her. She has made a series of terrible decisions and is now paying the price

^^and this

TM is no hapless victim here. She fought tooth and nail for decades to grab the top seat - the dream of all politicians male or female and regardless of their prowess to solve the problems of the day.
Brexit design was always going to be horrendous, and needed a specific skill set - a set that she doesn't have. All of this was perfectly clear in advance, but she went for it anyway.
She then made everything harder by losing her majority with an ill advised (and unnecessary) election.

gamerwidow · 12/12/2018 08:48

I think she's in an impossible position but I don't feel sorry for her (nor do I hate her) . I remember that during her time as home secretary she was complicit in fuelling anti immigrant feelings which lead in part to Brexit and the Windrush scandal.
I think she's done the best she can with Brexit though to be fair.

bellabasset · 12/12/2018 08:49

She's out now making her speech

Cuttingthegrass · 12/12/2018 08:49

Probably hasn't helped that she surrounded herself with a very small non elected group of advisors. Excluded her cabinet advice a lot. Has steadfastly continued to ignore her cabinet. She's tried to be a one person party

Brexit should have included a cross party selection of members to negotiate. That would have ensured most political views were included and then most likely this shambles in the house where politicians are just supporting their own agendas couldn't happen.

hottoflop · 12/12/2018 08:49

TM's subtext is "bitch, please!"

TheFairyCaravan · 12/12/2018 08:50

She's staying and is going to contest the vote of no confidence

MrsJayy · 12/12/2018 08:50

I don't think she is a victim i am in no doubt she is a hard face politition but she has had this landed on her lap she is a remainer and her job was thankless the country has gone to shit with no resolution!

StealthPolarBear · 12/12/2018 08:50

Has she said anything yet

AlexaShutUp · 12/12/2018 08:51

But the mess is not entirely of her making - it's Cameron's fault! If he hadn't called the referendum, none of this shit show would be happening right now.

She is certainly responsible for the crappy policies that have left so many people in poverty and for the disintegration of our public services, but Brexit is not a problem that she created.

I despise her politics but I can still feel sorry for her on a human level. Hell, there was even a point when I felt pity for David Cameron. I clearly have too much capacity for empathy!

StealthPolarBear · 12/12/2018 08:51

Thanks fairy

Crimson72 · 12/12/2018 08:51

Brexit should have included a cross party selection of members to negotiate.

Surely bringing a load more people into negotiations with a variety of different views would make it even harder to strike a deal!

Is she going to resign?

Crimson72 · 12/12/2018 08:53

She's staying and is going to contest the vote of no confidence

Ah, thanks Fairy. Shouldn’t have expected anything less really!

MeredithGrey1 · 12/12/2018 08:54

She did know the situation when she campaigned to become leader though. Unless she’s an idiot she will have known how difficult it was going to be, how much of the focus on her would be Brexit related and how much it would dominate any legacy she has, no one tricked her.
I can’t imagine why they’re challenging her now, I think she’ll win purely because who on earth would want to take over from her?? Surely everyone can see it’s a poisoned chalice and whoever is PM when whatever deal/no deal is done is going to upset a large percentage of the public and would be unlikely to win a general election. They all just want to sit back, criticise, and watch her fail while saying “well I could’ve done it better” they’d be mad to actually want to try and prove they could do it better.

LittleLionMansMummy · 12/12/2018 08:55

Her speech wasn't an address to the nation, it was an address to her Tory colleagues. Nothing to see here, she'll survive the vote.

MrsJayy · 12/12/2018 08:55

She is contesting good for her, i need to now sprint for my bus

MacarenaFerreiro · 12/12/2018 08:55

She has an impossible task. She is trying to bring the country (and her party) together on an issue on which they are completely divided.

I think she's doing her best and there's no-one who could do better. The last thing the UK needs now is a leadership challenge, more turmoil and more delay and uncertainty.

I could never be in politics. They're all so nasty to each other with personal attacks and cat-calling in parliament. And yes, I think a lot of people don't like Theresa May because she's a strong woman.

CardsforKittens · 12/12/2018 08:56

I have no sympathy for her at all, but I do sometimes wonder what she thinks when she wakes up in the morning. My first conscious thought in her position would be "oh fuck." Every single day.

noodlenosefraggle · 12/12/2018 08:56

Yes you only have to look at the personalities involved. Some arrogant public school boys who gave a woman no choice but to take the fall for a shitshow of their own making, then doing nothing but criticising from the sidelines until they think they can wade in and save the day at the very end and snatch the glory. They all disgust me.

Babycham1979 · 12/12/2018 08:57

She took the job she'd long coveted due to ego and arrogance. She's where she now is due to hu ris, arrogance and incompetence. Her time as Home Secretary demonstrated her petty, provincial racsim, which was further cemented by her policies as PM.

She's proven herself utterly unfair for the job, regardless of her sex. Stop fetishising womanhood; you do women a disservice. Was Thatcher a victim of sexism? No, hubris and arrogance again.

Thanks to her (and Cameron), we're facing a National crisis. She'll go down as the worst PM in modern history.

Babycham1979 · 12/12/2018 08:59

Oops. Hubris, racism and unfit. Blame predictive text!

ButteryParsnips · 12/12/2018 09:01

I hope she does survive the vote. She's been awful as PM (in a situation not entirely of her making) but the alternatives are worse. Boris is a power hungry moral vacuum - it would be a shameful day for the country if he got to lead it. All the Brexiteers are cowards who wouldn't step up before but now fancy either grabbing the glory or deliberately taking us into a no deal scenario.

The other reason I hope May survives is that a second referendum is looking more likely all the time and her staying increases that chance as it will cut off the chances of the no deal-happy Brexiteers for 12 months.

LaurieMarlow · 12/12/2018 09:02

She fought for a job she wasn't equipped to do

she has been terrible since the beginning of her premiership. Stuff hasn’t just happened to her. She has made a series of terrible decisions and is now paying the price

I also agree with both of these statements.

I guess there is a question around who was/is equipped to do it. I'm not sure anyone has the skill required.

David Cameron should be absolutely hung out to dry for the catastrophic ineptitude that got us here in the first place. He seems to have slunk off without much scrutiny. I'm raging about that.

LMW1990 · 12/12/2018 09:02

Whether you like TM or not, agree with her policies past and present or not, this is the last thing we need as a country right now.

The terms of Brexit are not down to TM's (or anyone who would take her place for that matter) direct and personal decisions. They are the front for a large team of policy advisers and experts who will remain the same regardless.

Europe will care not who is dealing with this shit-show - they just want the deal done and over with.

At a time when our country should be united, we look weaker by the day. The Tory in-fighting (which, let's face it, triggered this whole debacle in the first place) is a downright disgrace to politics.

TM (or anyone else) was always at risk of upsetting at least 49% of the population and possibly more now with the leavers who now want to remain.

Lets not forget she came into power without a mandate (similar to Gordon Brown), she called an election to give her said mandate and we, the British public, voted to keep her as PM. She won the election with 37% of the votes. Just like the referendum - that everyone says we have to respect the outcome of - that was democracy.

Whilst I found her difficult to warm to, I admire her tenacity in the face of a very difficult situation. One from which the very Tory leader who called for it, ran away from when he didn't get the resulted he wanted and failed to end the inter-party divide.

Swipe left for the next trending thread