Theresa May’s tax climbdown shows her weakness | Simon Jenkins

About to negotiate the Brexit rapids, the prime minister has exposed herself as vulnerable to murmuring backbenchers and howling front pages

One minute you are monarch of all you survey, the next minute it all goes wobbly. Theresa May’s climbdown yesterday on Philip Hammond’s tax plans was humiliating. Overnight, £2bn in tax revenue vanished from the finance bill and evaporated into “consultation” and “further review”. The reason was equally humiliating: 18 Tory backbenchers had only to murmur...