IT was the day when Theresa May’s British Dream turned into her political nightmare.
Just as the Prime Minister was getting into her stride in her keynote speech to the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, emphasising how her Government needed to offer the hope that the next generation would do better than the current one, she looked down and saw an audience member approach her with a piece of paper.
"Boris asked me to give you this," said the bespectacled interloper as he thrust the fake P45 under her nose.
It was a cruel reminder, if any were needed, that the annual Tory gathering had been dominated by the question of her leadership and cast in the shadow of the Foreign Secretary, who was sitting in the front row.
There was a pregnant pause as the audience tried to understand what on earth was going on as it took some time for the unwanted guest to be shuffled away by staff to chants of “Out! Out!”.
Of course, it was a massive security breach and one could only wonder what would have happened if the man had had serious ill intent.
It later transpired that he had been arrested for an alleged breach of the peace.
But the problems for Mrs May and her keynote conference speech did not end there. As she began talking about how the choice of futures for Britain was so stark, her voice began to give way.
She struggled over her attack on Jeremy Corbyn for letting “anti-Semitism, misogyny and hatred run free” within the Labour Party, taking sips of water.
READ MORE: Who is the prankster who targeted Theresa May?
The PM seemed to recover to ridicule the socialist leader and his extoling of Venezuela as an economic role model and declared with a Thatcherite flourish: “No…Jeremy Corbyn!”
But then the frog in her throat began to win a battle of wills. Perhaps it was a socialist frog.
As Mrs May talked about Brexit and how she wanted EU citizens to stay in Britain, the coughing fit got too much and she appeared to dry up completely. At which point, the audience rose to its feet and began to cheer.
But it seemed to borne out of sympathy more than anything else and was a clear bid to give the Tory leader time to recover. Then a hand stretched out with a cough toffee. “It’s the only time the Chancellor has given away something free,” quipped the PM.
It now seemed in the conference hall that there was a collective will to urge Mrs May through her speech.
She apologised for calling the General Election, which, she explained was too scripted and too presidential.
“I hold my hands up for that. I take responsibility. I led the campaign. And I am sorry.”
There were unusual moments of personal references from the vicar’s daughter, including one about how it had “always been a great sadness for me and Philip that we were never blessed with children”.
There was even a joke. Just one.
She declared that she knew people did not regard her as an emotional person and that she was sometimes called the Ice Maiden. “Though perhaps,” she quipped, “George Osborne took the analogy a little far.” A reference to how the former Chancellor joked that he would not rest until his old Cabinet colleague was “chopped up in bags in my freezer”.
Mrs May went through her Government’s record, highlighting how income tax had been cut for more than 30 million people, how income equality was at its lowest for 30 years, how there were thousands more doctors and nurses in the NHS and how crime was down by a third.
The PM spoke about ordering a major review of tuition fees and investing an additional £2 billion in affordable housing in a direct pitch to Generation Rent.
Referring to how young people could not get on the housing ladder, she insisted: “I will dedicate my premiership to fixing this problem; to restoring hope. To renewing the British Dream for a new generation of people.”
She also announced that next week her Government would introduce legislation to introduce an energy pay cap for millions of consumers.
One high point came when she declared how she was a proud Unionist, declaring: “I take comfort that the General Election saw the threat of Nationalism set back, the case for a second referendum in Scotland denied.”
And looking at her Scottish colleague, Mrs May said to cheers: “And wasn’t it a brilliant result for the Scottish Conservatives and their superb leader, Ruth Davidson.” Ms Davidson took in the adulation sitting alongside members of the Cabinet.
If the faltering voice was not enough as the PM spoke about the diversity, compassion and strength of modern Britain letters from the conference’s main slogan – Building A Country That Works For Everyone – began to fall away on the screen behind her.
Then the frog returned. As the PM spoke about the “terrible toll of terrorism” and the indomitable Spirit of Manchester, her voice gave away yet again.
With more sips of water she carried on, insisting how Britain was a “nation of dreamers,” who had the capacity to make their dreams come true. “The British Dream,” she declared, “can be renewed.”
With the audience mentally and spiritually willing her towards the finishing line, their leader urged them to “shape up and give the country the Government it needs”.
The audience needed no encouragement when Mrs May referred to how it was not her style to shrink from a challenge, to retreat in the face of difficulty, to give up and turn away.
“For the test of a leader is how you respond when tough times come upon you,” she declared to rousing applause. Although the frog in her throat did not get a mention.
After she exhorted her party to fulfil its duty to Britain to “renew the British dream,” the party faithful rose more in relief than praise to cheer their leader.
Husband Philip jumped up onto the stage to give his wife a big hug.
Mrs May smiled gleefully and gave a thumbs-up to delegates. Reports of tears were denied by No 10.
But the nightmare speech acted as a metaphor for her troubled premiership.
Far from quieting the voices of her critics, her own vocal problems - at a key political moment as the party and country looked on - might well have encouraged them to turn up the volume in the days ahead.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel