Anyone think May is coming across as a dictator?

[3amEternal]

I am worried about her decision making, 'I'm in charge now' autocracy and lack of critical thinking. This whole schools green paper that she put her name to, for example. It was completely based on her own rose tinted memories of being at grammar school and flew in the face of all the very clear evidence suggesting grammar schools were not the way forward. But now it has to go ahead because 'Teresa said so'.
Is she going to ignore all the evidence suggesting hard brexit will be a disaster for the economy just so she can continue her vendetta against immigrants and her own interpretation (again based on no evidence) about why people voted leave (apparently it was definitely about immigration- despite many of the areas voting leave having few immigrants and some voting remain having many- but people did not vote because of promises about the NHS, where did you get that from?)
I'm suspecting that her critical thinking skills are not great and she's an autocrat. Basically Donald Trump in a twin set and pearls.

I'm no Tory, but I think she's doing pretty well.

Even if you don't like her, describing her as a dictator is very over the top.

She's been described as a Tudor monarch in the press.

After Corbyn wiped the floor with her over grammar schools I had my self a chuckle too.

The grammar schools thing appeases her party too.
Won't make it through the Lords without there being a really good new idea that comes with it.

All the noises coming out of Whitehall is that there will be a hard brexit, which appeases her party, but there isn't a mandate for.
Too simplistic. Whitehall might say lots of things and want to do certain things. However it still has to be a) legal b) workable

May is doing things that are putting her in a position which ultimately will make her life difficult and won't appease anyone. Its just setting her up for a huge U-Turn to someone, somewhere, somehow. To use laymans terms here, she's headed for a clusterfuck whatever she does.

She needed to be decisive and clear in her approach from the word go and not put herself into that position if she was a dictator about it. She is not a dictator as a dictator would not have put herself into the position she is.

At best she's trying to please no one and will end up pleasing no one. Potentially making herself look weak in the end. At worst she's just incompetent and eventually this will be exposed.

We can only hope its the former.

To go back to the grammar schools thing, it does indeed give the perfect example of this and raises questions over her judgment imho. She did not need to support the grammar schools idea - unlike the situation created by Brexit - thus I lean more and more to the latter.

It does not make me feel confident, nor does it make me think she is a dictator at all. Dictators command the respect and enough power to be able to enforce what they believe in.

I don't think May is a dictator - she hasn't, thank God, written anything like Mein Kampf. I think she is a woman who is hard-working but pedestrian, and would be a good (enough) PM for times of stability. Times of stability are what we don't have right now. I am hard-pressed to say who might have been suitable for the job - this just reflects the paucity of political talent on all sides of the House right now.

Anyone willing to take that on, despite the biggest thing on the agenda being something she didn't even agree with, is a very dangerous character IMO

Or perhaps there was an element of civic duty?!

If you believe that you're very deluded about the world of politics- they're all in it for personal gain.

She doesn't have a proper mandate and wants to come across as decisive. Almost inevitably, she is being authoritarian.

Well pere, I completely disagree. It's a great shame that the Leave campaign connected voting for Brexit with the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but the PM is under no obligation to deliver that pot of gold along with Brexit. I'm surprised you think she is.

Also, keeping a complete disaster in office (Gove) to 'clean his own mess up' when the welfare of the country at stake is the worst judgement I've ever heard of. This is the country, not a teenager tidying up his room. If he's been a disaster, the chances are that he will continue to be a disaster. Obviously we should cut our losses.

I despair.

She doesn't have a proper mandate and wants to come across as decisive. Almost inevitably, she is being authoritarian

If that were the case wouldn't you at least tell your direct reports to, literally, toe the party line.

I say this as a life long Tory voter

It's a fucking shambles.

bear Most of us have a number of motives for doing anything. Top consultants are in their job to help people but it's one of many reasons. While politics is admittedly egocentric and cut-throat, I do think there are those who believe they are doing their bit, for reasons that are at least partially about civic duty. As far as an outsider can tell, I think May falls into this category.

A good sight more than Boris, anyway, who did not want that job right now because he has no civic duty... He and May aren't cut from the same cloth.

I think we can probably agree about Boris. His duty is to Boris, unless it's talking about duty he pays on importing his champagne.

May I am sure, does have a sense of duty. The way she exercises it wouldn't be my way, but I am not in Government and have no desire to be so.

Me neither. My civic duty doesn't extend so far as that

May comes across to me as being inflexible, whereas, as far as the EU is concerned, what is needed is someone who is a skillful negotiator, who can see ways for all sides to make face saving compromises. An opinion piece in today's Guardian called for a modern day Metternich. I don't see May, Fox, Davis, or Johnson as that. I struggle to think of anyone who fits the bill.

I think that's because it's an impressively impossible task TBH. There is no sweet spot to be found between floppy and unyielding, at least not one which would be recognised as such by the majority.

Theresa May accused of trying to alter immigration report before Brexit vote

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/27/theresa-may-accused-trying-to-alter-immigration-report-before-brexit-vote?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

It's hard Brexit right. There is no savior in May.
We are truly shafted.

May does not have the power to be a 'saviour'.

As I understand it, I THINK that if the NI a50 challenge is successful it would mean Brexit would have to pass through Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the NI Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Irish would have to also agree to it.

Following her actions the last couple of days I now think as well as having the quality of a dictator she (as they so often are) is bonkers. Hope the courts can stop this madness.

Parliament, with a few noble exceptions, has become completely spineless. Ditto, I think, the Welsh Assembly. I hope the NI Assemblies, Scottish Parliament and Irish can derail it.

Not a chance.

I think she's doing great, more impressed every day

I'd be interested to hear what leadership style the OP feels would be more effective right now than a broadly authoritarian approach...

The ability to use Henry the VIII clauses will be enshrined in the Great Repeal Act, bypassing parliament.

Very dictatorial.

She also doesn't really show any authority, all her speeches contain no information, her interviews either. But then all the Tories like a strict school ma'am so she is trying to come over like that.