Unused to the pace of a national election campaign, the prime minister complained when she had to memorise ‘yet another fifteen-minute speech’, and was constantly nervous of performing. Towards the end of the campaign one adviser went to collect her from the room where she was preparing for a rally and found Philip May pacing around outside. ‘I went to move towards the door and he looked at me and said, “No, no, no, no. Even I’m not allowed in there right now.” I was really surprised that she had kicked him out of the room. That was the level of focus she deemed necessary to have. It felt a
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