2017: Theresa May's "annus horribilis"

Early on there were one or two small victories to savour for the Tory leader.

In February, the Conservatives won the Copeland by-election from Labour; the first such victory by a serving government for 35 years. Three months later at the local elections in England, the party made significant gains at the expense of Labour, gaining 500 seats and seizing control of 11 councils.

In Scotland, they pushed Labour into third place while south of the border the Tories won four out of six metro-mayoral areas, including the traditionally Labour-voting Tees Valley and West Midlands. Things were looking up as the opinion polls placed the Conservatives more than 20 points ahead of Labour.

But then came a fateful Easter walk in the Welsh mountains.

Having repeatedly insisted she would not go to the country despite colleagues urging her to take advantage of the party’s robust poll lead, Mrs May breathed in the Snowdonia air and changed her mind. It was arguably the biggest political blunder in recent British history.

The subsequent June election highlighted how the Tory leader, dubbed the “Maybot” and “glumbucket,” was not a natural campaigner and seemed rarely to mingle with the punters.

In contrast, Jeremy Corbyn grew in confidence on the stump, drawing large, enthusiastic crowds.

Mrs May’s refusal to do live head-to-head TV debates was a bad misjudgement, leaving the stage to her rivals.

Her absence produced one of the zingers of the campaign. When asked by an audience member to sum up leadership, Caroline Lucas, the co-leader of the Greens, replied: “The first rule of leadership is: to show up.”

The low point for the PM came in Halifax with the launch of the Tory manifesto and what became known as the “dementia tax”; thousands of pensioners having to sell their homes to pay for the care they had received, because the Conservatives axed a commitment to impose a cap on lifetime care costs of around £72,000.

When the storm broke, Mrs May ridiculously declared: “Nothing has changed.” But much had. As Tory candidates got it in the neck on the doorsteps from grey voters, the policy over a weekend was quickly ditched; there would, after all, be an “absolute limit” on care costs.

Yet the political damage had been done.

To make matters worse, it later transpired that the “dementia tax” plan had been introduced into the manifesto behind the backs of Cabinet ministers; inserted by Nick Timothy, who along with his fellow joint No 10 Chief of Staff Fiona Hill, was disliked intensely by some Cabinet ministers; the two would later be ditched themselves.

The PM’s election mantra of providing a “strong and stable leadership” ended up being dubbed “weak and wobbly” by not only her opponents but also the public.

Having a small majority pre-election, Mrs May had hoped to increase it significantly to help with the passage of all the Brexit legislation that was to come. But the election result meant her parliamentary lead had evaporated and she was left having to do a deal with the “undertakers”, the Democratic Unionists, to give her the insurance of a small working majority in the Commons.

It would cost the taxpayer £1 billion over two years to boost public spending in Northern Ireland. Chances are the DUP will come back for more in 2019.

Perhaps the only silver lining to an otherwise black electoral cloud was the revival of the Tories in Scotland, where they increased their number from one to 13; the rise was put down to a polarisation of opinion on the Union.

From the start of the year there were private rumblings in Whitehall that the PM would be making a big move on the constitution. It slipped out in February when Sir Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, ahead of a trip to Scotland told The Herald in an interview that Nicola Sturgeon could abandon her desire to hold a second independence referendum in this parliament. The First Minister should, insisted Sir Michael, “forget it”.

A month later, Mrs May formally rejected Ms Sturgeon's desire to hold indyref2 in the autumn of 2018; the crunch point in the Brexit talks.

When the Tory election manifesto came out, it talked of wanting Brexit to play out before any consideration of another independence poll could be given. David Mundell, the Scottish Secretary, made clear facilitating another vote on Scotland’s future was off the agenda until after the next election in 2022. As one Tory minister put it: “The SNP have had their referendum – and they lost.”

Economically, the Brexit effect was beginning to take its toll. As shares rose, the pound fell. Inflation would rise above three per cent. Companies would begin to make contingency plans to relocate on the continent. Net migration fell by 100,000, 85 per cent of which was accounted for by EU nationals. The “Brexodus” had begun.

In his first Budget, Philip Hammond sought to hike National Insurance Contributions for employers, only to have to face the embarrassment days later of reversing the rise because it broke a Tory manifesto pledge.

Mrs May seemed intent before the election on dumping her Remainer Chancellor but, after it, she did not have the power to do it.

Mrs May’s first full year as PM was punctuated by tragedy with the series of deadly terror attacks at Westminster, Manchester, London Bridge and Finsbury Park. Most were inspired by Islamist extremism.

At one point, the terror threat level was raised to its highest, “critical,” with an attack believed to be imminent and the election had to be suspended twice because of the attacks in Manchester and London.

Another tragedy, which for many summed up Britain’s cultural divide, occurred at Grenfell Tower in Kensington. Mrs May was criticised for her “inhuman” response; for not swiftly meeting residents. Later, it was claimed she was so overawed by the tragedy that she wept in Downing Street and would later apologise for the “failure of the state”.

Her main diplomatic drive over the year was trying to talk up the UK-US Special Relationship in spite of Donald Trump’s tweets and policy announcements.

The PM sought to underpin it early on by being the first international leader to meet the new President in the White House, which involved the famous and controversial hand-holding episode. Mrs May would later insist her host was simply being the gentleman by steadying her as they walked down a walkway but the imagery suggested the British leader was being led, literally and metaphorically, by the American one.

After public and political protests effectively pushed back the timing of the state visit to some time in the future, matters came to a head when the US President retweeted anti-Muslim videos from Britain First, the extreme right group.

In a highly unusual move, the PM publicly condemned Mr Trump, saying he had been “wrong” to retweet the videos but the President hit back urging her not to focus on him but on radical Islamism in the UK.

Transatlantic relations would cool even further when Mr Trump decided to announce a decision to relocate America’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, causing international condemnation, which the PM echoed. Ministers were keen to point out the Special Relationship was with America not the here today-gone tomorrow incumbent in the White House.

Yet despite the friction, the President looks set to visit London in February to officially open the new US embassy; opponents predict it will draw the biggest demonstration in British history.

Of course, the political theme that has dominated Mrs May’s year has been Brexit.

Her general approach was set out in January in her Lancaster House speech when she made clear how Britain wanted a bespoke deal, which would mean it leaving the single market and customs union.

A setback occurred in the same month when the Government lost its court case and was forced to hold a Westminster vote on triggering Article 50 to begin the Brexit process. But it won the vote and the process of Britain’s historic withdrawal began.

The talks process with Brussels that commenced in June would prove fraught with disagreements on the divorce settlement – with early figures from the continent topping £100 billion – and citizens’ rights.

Rhetorical heat was generated for months with tetchy joint press conferences given by David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, and Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiatior.

A dinner in No 10 with Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission President, confirmed the tepidity of the relations; thanks to a leak we learned the Euro chief had suggested Mrs May was “deluded” and living “in another galaxy”.

The PM sought to reset relations with Brussels in another keynote speech in Florence, which seemed to work.

But a European Council in October when “sufficient progress” had to be made to move the talks from phase one to phase two on transition and trade came and went. Time was running short. The Irish border issue was now the stumbling block.

Ahead of the December Council, Mrs May proffered a new deal, which suggested Northern Ireland would continue to be aligned with EU law post Brexit.

The DUP hit the roof. Its leader Arlene Foster vetoed the PM’s plan as it would have separated off Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK; anathema to the Unionists. Indeed, Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, urgently contacted Mrs May to remind her, in no uncertain terms, carving out a special deal for Northern Ireland would be the beginning of the end for the United Kingdom.

The PM stepped back and made clear any settlement for Northern Ireland would also cover the whole of the UK.

With the Northern Ireland issue fudged but agreement reached on EU citizens’ rights and the mechanism to work out the divorce settlement put at between £35bn and £39bn, Mrs May made a dawn flight to Brussels for talks with Mr Juncker. Agreement was sealed over breakfast.

The December Council proved a triumph for the PM as the EU27 agreed that “sufficient progress” had been made to move the talks to transition and trade.

Yet in a year of ups and downs, moments of success were followed by moments of failure.

The sexual harassment scandal that began with the revelations about Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein transplanted itself to Westminster. Amid the claims of inappropriate behaviour Sir Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, resigned following an allegation from a female journalist. The long-held description of the Scot as a “safe pair of hands” now was laced with irony.

Attention then turned to Damian Green, Mrs May’s deputy, who had also been caught up in claims of sexual harassment by another female journalist. Yet the official probe had another element; claims, nine years old, from two former police officers that his office computer had been used to view pornography.

The First Secretary denied both claims but an official probe found he had issued “misleading” statements ie he had lied and so the PM sacked her most loyal political friend for breaching the ministerial code.

With the earlier forced resignation of Priti Patel, the International Development Secretary, over her private meetings with Israeli ministers while on holiday, Mrs May had lost three Cabinet colleagues in just two months.

If one event summed up her “annus horribilis,” it came in early October when she addressed the Tory conference in her keynote speech. The prankster interrupting her set-piece address would have been bad enough as would the letters falling from the conference slogan behind her but it was the excruciating experience of losing her voice through important passages that made it a disaster for the PM. It became a metaphor for her premiership.

And yet for all the many knock-backs, Mrs May, like the beleaguered John Major before her, is still there.

Indeed, there were, amid the dire developments, some uplifting moments, most notably getting the EU27 to move onto phase two of the Brexit talks and seeing the Tories, remarkably, push ahead of Labour in the polls.

No doubt as the PM enjoyed her all too fleeting festive break she would have pondered that 2018 could not possibly be as bad as 2017. Could it?