Fall Out: A Year of Political Mayhem

by Tim Shipman

‘She and DD had this hideous flirting thing going on,’ said one official who attended their meetings. ‘She twinkled at DD. It was awful, it was like your grandparents flirting.

Tim Farron praised Blair for introducing the minimum wage and investing in public services. Referencing the Iraq War, which the Lib Dems had opposed, he quipped, ‘I see Tony Blair the way I see the Stone Roses, I preferred the early work.’

‘She is lacking emotional intelligence,’ one aide said. At Christmas, Perrior suggested that May visit the press team for mince pies and prosecco. Her request was declined. The prime minister was too busy, the chiefs said. Eventually Perrior was offered a date in May.

Tory MPs, with the combination of submissive awe and slightly sinister familiarity that governed the party’s attitude towards a female boss, took to referring to their leader as ‘Mummy’ in text and WhatsApp exchanges.

One bemused minister described the enthusiasm for May as ‘the cult of no personality’.

More than one Tory cabinet minister later confessed that their own children voted Labour.

‘We’re having pizza and having elections every year. We really are turning into Italy.’

‘New Labour’s dead,’ he said. ‘No doubt about that. It’s dead, buried and finished. It’s a regrettable chapter in our history. Historians will think, “My God, what were they doing?!”’9 To which the moderate reply would be: winning three elections.

‘They were like the generals of Dunkirk, presenting a self-evident military catastrophe as a PR victory. The last time Labour won an election in 2005, Jeremy Corbyn claimed it was a damning indictment of Tony Blair and his illegal foreign war. Blair got ninety-six seats more than the greatest victory for socialism since the war.’