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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To feel desperately sorry for Theresa May

398 replies

ferns99 · 28/03/2019 11:58

On a human level I just feel so sorry for her - she looks like she's aged so much and is apparently becoming quite unwell because of the immense stress she's under. To be continually ripped to shreds by the despicable ERG and so many others in the House of Commons is just awful - I don't know how she does it. A few times I've seen her looking like she's on the verge of tears. I wonder if she goes home every night and just sobs - I know I would.

It's sad as I think she would have made a decent PM if Brexit didn't exist.

OP posts:
Glitterblue · 28/03/2019 12:28

I do, on a human level, feel desperately sorry for her. Whatever her policies etc are, she's still a human being, with feelings.

blackteasplease · 28/03/2019 12:29

I do feel sorry for her even though I suspect I shouldn't!

RitaFairclough · 28/03/2019 12:29

Nope. No sympathy from me. Of course no one else would do the job - it’s never going to work. She was just arrogant enough to step up and - AND - she doesn’t even think Brexit is a good idea.

Saying that though, I think the circling vultures like Boris bloody Johnson who were campaigning for leave and then didn’t step up when they had the chance are even more despicable. And I also think there is a whiff of misogyny about their ‘let the men sort this out’ attitude when they didn’t take on the job in the first place.

LaurieMarlow · 28/03/2019 12:30

She knew what she was getting into and she fundamentally didn’t have the skills for it.

Sure, it’s been tough on her at a personal level but her own ambition got her here. I find it hard to feel too sorry for her.

Ewitsahooman · 28/03/2019 12:31

I could write a list of the reasons why I don't feel sorry for her dating right back to before she even became PM.

I don't understand the sympathy around her being this poor, beleaguered woman doing her best against the Westminster bullies. Do we have the same hand-wringing sympathy for the male politicians who monumentally fuck everything up and then blunder around fucking it up even further in a vain attempt to prolong their career? Or do we just call them a stupid dickhead (e.g., David Cameron) and acknowledge that they ballsed everything up?

WhoKnewBeefStew · 28/03/2019 12:33

I agree OP. She inherited a Poison chalice and it was never going to end well, or he easy.

orangesquashh · 28/03/2019 12:33

Interesting that you see her willingness to step up as arrogance Rita. Personally I think she clearly did have ambitions to be PM and wanted to seize her chance, but I do think that it was also very admirable of her to take on what was clearly going to be a very difficult couple of years.

I think she went into the job with the best of intentions and was probably somewhat naive about just how challenging getting a deal done would be.

beepbeeprichie · 28/03/2019 12:34

I agree with you OP. I bet the establishment, old Etonian men are utter cocks to deal with.

It’s all very well saying she signed up for it. So do teachers and nurses. It is only when they get into the reality of the job that the hours, the stress and the emotional toll actually manifest. I don’t see anyone ever saying “that’s what you signed up for” when a nurse moans on here.
Also, yes she will no doubt make a lot of money when she does resign (or is pushed!!) but that’s not the be all and end all. Particularly considering the amount of pressure and public humiliation she’s had to endure.

EmeraldShamrock · 28/03/2019 12:34

Me too, She took the job when no one could and stuck with the result to leave.
She should have left months ago, the UK parliament is very juvenile and embarrassing atm.

MorningRichie · 28/03/2019 12:35

She should have resigned over Windrush. That was under her watch.

Regardless of anything else, she's a remainer who wanted to block immigration and everything she has done in politics has to be viewed through the prism of immigration control.

FloatingthroughSpace · 28/03/2019 12:35

I think she has an immense sense of duty but she has always conflated a national mandate (just) for Brexit with a Tory Brexit for which there was NO mandate.

She should have set up a cross parliamentary committee straight away and had a dedicated brexit team delivering a Brexit acceptable to the country. Instead of which she has put down Tory priority "red lines" which have led to an impossible Brexit that will never be acceptable to a majority.
Foolish.

RosaWaiting · 28/03/2019 12:35

in a way, I do.

I think she really thought that she was a compromise, being a Remainer enacting Brexit....I did think it was mad at the time, but I don't think anyone knew quite how bad it would get.

also not convinced anyone would have stepped in if she hadn't. They all seemed to be running away, so I really don't know what would have happened if she hadn't stepped up.

woodpigeons · 28/03/2019 12:35

She’ll be OK.
Her husband has reportedly made money out of this crisis of her making.
Save your sympathy for the people who need it. Those who won’t be able to cope with rising food prices, NHS cuts and medication shortages.

Bluntness100 · 28/03/2019 12:36

No one is saying she is some "poor beleaguered woman"

What is being said is she took on an impossible task when no one else would, and she has been bullied and abused from the start. We gave all watched it happen.

And if you ever watch the houses of commons, it's systematic and prolonged, they fight to get to their feet to attack and abuse her, one after the other, and have done for a very long time.

It's despicable behaviour, because it's personal. And yes if it was a man it would be the same, because it's about what she's trying to achieve. But there is no way to deny she is systematically abused and attacked continuously for attempting to do what her attackers don't have the balls or stomach for.

purplelass · 28/03/2019 12:36

I don't feel sorry for her at all. She was a remainer who took the job of making us leave, knowing roughly half the country wanted to stay in the EU. It was never going to be an easy job.

And knowing she's been offering peerages and even her own resignation as bribes to accept a deal few want doesn't endear her to me at all.

I wouldn't swap places with her for a billion quid but I don't feel sorry for her at all.

AlecTrevelyan006 · 28/03/2019 12:36

I have no sympathy for her.

Her mantra was ‘strong and stable’

It should have been ‘stubborn and stupid’

DGRossetti · 28/03/2019 12:37

I feel a bit sorry for her as I think she had good intentions,

I guess if "saving the Tory party" is a good intention, you're spot on. Otherwise she is someone who has repeated lied to the public, shown not one scintilla of regret for the human misery caused as a direct result of her nasty political decisions in various jobs, and she deliberately decided to inflame thugs to threaten elected MPs - in particular female MPs. Even now, she's not shown any signs of being interested in what is best for the country she claims to lead. Just her own Tory party and it's gaggle of over privileged men.

FuzzyShadowChatter · 28/03/2019 12:37

I don't, but I don't think it's unreasonable. I'm annoyed at David Cameron and other Tories' role in her being the sacrificial PM by running after an incredibly lazy remain campaign, but well before and throughout this mess, her actions hasn't really brought about any sympathy with the damage she's caused.

She's just as much part of the mess as any of them and while I'm not sure any other Tory frontrunner would have been doing any better with this Brexit mess, there is plenty of mess in the rest of the country that's been badly affected by her as PM and her previously in the Home Office that she has not expressed any remorse or sympathy for the pain it's caused and continues to cause.

Calamapo · 28/03/2019 12:37

No sympathy here. Not even a shadow of a shred of sympathy.

She chose to take this path. It didn't have to be this way. She chose her intractable red lines just like she chose to alienate the 48% who voted Remain, . She chose the good of the Tories over the good of the country. She’s still choosing the good of the Tory party of the good of the country.

Will she have sympathy for us when we’re watching our standard of living decline while her lifestyle is unchanged? Will she fuck.

Theresa May can whistle for my sympathy.

pigsDOfly · 28/03/2019 12:37

Can't really see that she's being bullied out of her job like some 'poor little woman'. It really isn't the same as some poor office worker being bullied by a colleague or several.

She's tough, otherwise she wouldn't be pm. Her ideas are being voted down and yes, she isn't wanted as pm any more by quite a number of people. It's the nature of the job to have to fight your corner and it's probably sensible to know when you've become so unpopular you should bow out.

Hearhere · 28/03/2019 12:37

David Cameron might as well have given as a referendum about whether we'd like to go and have a luxury lifestyle on the planet Jupiter, and then a majority of people said 'that sounds like a good idea let's go' because they assumed that we would not be offered this option unless it was actually doable

I do feel sorry for Theresa May because she is in an impossible situation

Ewitsahooman · 28/03/2019 12:38

Her decisions are and have made millions of others ill even suicidal.

@Graphista How has she done that?

When she was in the Home Office she pushed the "hostile environment" anti-immigration agenda which included sending around vans bearing the message of "go home".

Windrush.

The poor handling of the Grenfell aftermath when she didn't even bother to visit the area.

Continued austerity and the pushing ahead with UC despite knowing it's not fit for purpose.

Jumping into partnership with the DUP and thereby helping to continue the lack of abortion access for women in NI and the restrictions on same-sex marriage. Giving them £1 billion in bribes to prop up her government at the same time as telling people in desperate need that there is no magical money tree - she can find the fucking tree when it suits her though, can't she?

Amongstthetallgrass · 28/03/2019 12:39

I didn’t like what she did before she was PM. I have no sympathy for her at all.

yiskasha · 28/03/2019 12:39

I did at first, but now absolutely not.

Hearhere · 28/03/2019 12:39

Everyone is criticizing her but no one, absolutely no one, wants to be in her shoes