Theresa May is the right (wo)man for the job… but she needs our votes
New PM’s closet seems remarkably free of skeletons, as if she has prepared her entire life for this day, says Sun columnist
EVERY so often, when visiting the Cotswolds, we drive past an antiques centre called The Quiet Woman.
“Puh, there’s no such thing,” remarks the Bloke, with tedious predictability.
Well, yes there is. And she’s about to get the keys to Number 10 Downing Street.
Step forward Theresa Mary May, the archetypal “quiet woman” who, according to friends, has been preparing for the role of Prime Minister since her late teens. Just as well, really.
Because, despite the endless battle cry that we want our politicians to be “real people” who’ve led “real lives”, the brutally harsh, er, reality of frontline politics is such that, if you once had so much as an overdue library book, it will be held up as evidence of your blatant disrespect for public services.
So, perhaps thanks to her long-held ambition, Mrs May’s closet seems remarkably free of skeletons, as if her every move since leaving Oxford University has been meticulously edited in preparation for this momentous day.
Have you ever taken drugs, Mrs May? Does aspirin count? Any embarrassing photos that might rear their ugly heads? Not a chance. Can we see your tax returns, please? Absolutely. And the killer question, were you a David or Donny fan? Sorry, who?
Yep, that focused.
Consequently, pretty much the only punches laid on her during the bare- knuckle brawling of the Tory leadership campaign was that she doesn’t go drinking in the Westminster bars, isn’t part of the Notting
Hill set and can be a “bloody difficult woman”.
Which, in my book, are all huge compliments.
In short, to paraphrase Rudyard Kipling’s seminal poem If, Mrs May has kept her head when all about her were losing theirs. She has trusted herself when some men doubted, she has waited and not been tired by it, she hasn’t dealt in lies and has talked with crowds and kept her virtue.
And unlike poor Andrea Leadsom, who accidentally entered the race and suddenly found her life placed under a microscope, she hasn’t had to bear a truth she’s spoken being twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.
In 2002, then-Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith roused the Tory faithful with the words, “Do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man,” as an antidote to the flamboyant PM Tony Blair, but was soon written off as a damp squib and replaced by Michael Howard.
Fast-forward 14 years and, post-Brexit, the country has had quite enough excitement for one year — so the prospect of a steady hand at the tiller for the uncertain short term is deeply reassuring, be it male or female.
But in the long term, Mrs May faces the biggest challenge of her political career so far.
Yes, she will now become PM. But by “coronation”, not by the vote of the people in a General Election, a validation that, ultimately, she will want.
Whether she goes to the country before the end of this year or waits until 2020 remains to be seen.
In the meantime, she must act quickly to prove, as promised, that “Brexit means Brexit” and steer the
UK towards greater opportunity for everyone, not just the privileged few.
If she manages it, then it’s back to Kipling.
“Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
“And which is more — you’ll be a man, my son!”
Or, rather, woman.
Alexa Glum
A SURVEY of 400 men and women has revealed what they regard as infidelity.
Men generally defined it as their partner having sex with someone else, while women were just as distressed about their chap enjoying cosy chats or private jokes with a close female friend.
Alexa Chung wasn’t surveyed, but judging by her mutinous expression, inset, after boyfriend Alexander Skarsgard had enjoyed a “cosy chat and private joke” with his co-star on the red carpet of the Tarzan movie, she feels the same way.
Particularly, one suspects, when that close female friend is the flirtatious, drop-dead gorgeous and saucily dressed blonde bombshell Margot Robbie.
A tip on rubbish binmen
WHEN dustmen refused to take her family’s rubbish because their wheelie bin was deemed “too heavy”, nine-year-old Lacey McMillan put them to shame by dragging it to the side of the road herself.
Coventry council says it has spoken to the men, who still insist they made a sensible judgment based on the bin’s weight.
So, when they knock on the door at Christmas and ask for a tip, I sincerely hope that Lacey’s parents say: “Sorry, mate, I’ve got a tenner in the kitchen but it’s far too heavy to bring to the door.”
Christie's ageless beauty
IN yesterday’s Sun, 62-year-old former supermodel Christie Brinkley credited her ageless and undoubtedly stunning looks to following a strict vegan diet.
And no doubt the cosmetic fillers, Botox, expensive dentistry, hair extensions, daily exercise regime, permanent jaw-lifting smile and being born gorgeous in the first place help enormously too.
Still a safe bet, Peter
PETER JOHNSON blew his £2,000 student loan on a bet that the UK would opt to stay in the EU.
“I was 100 per cent sure it would be Remain,” says a “devastated” Peter, 19, who is studying economics and finance at Strathclyde University. Still, he shouldn’t fret too much.
Considering his professional predecessors predicted that not joining the ERM would be catastrophic for the UK and failed to predict the last recession, it sounds like he’ll still make a fine economist.
Madonna in Malawi
MADONNA’s latest trip to Malawi has perhaps served two purposes.
The first is fulfilling her promise to keep adopted son David, now ten, in touch with his Malawian heritage.
And the second, hopefully, is to remind her errant 15-year-old son Rocco that not everyone has the privileged start in life that he’s enjoyed and it should never be taken for granted.
Let's see Murray in wax
AS Andy Murray raised his second Wimbledon singles trophy aloft, he was watched by A-list slebs including the PM, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Benedict Cumberbatch.
Yet, according to a spokesman for Madame Tussauds, “There are no immediate plans” for a waxwork of the tennis ace because he simply isn’t popular enough.
However, due to public demand, effigies of Kendall Jenner, she of Kardashian fame, and model Cara Delevingne were introduced earlier this year.
Saints preserve us.
So come on everyone, let’s put right this gross injustice by bombarding Tussauds via Facebook or Twitter (@MadameTussauds) with demands that the Murray mania we witnessed on Sunday should finally be represented in wax.
If necessary, they can melt down YouTube “vloggers” Zoe Sugg and Alfie Deyes.
And no, I’m not making this up.
Big night out
MEANWHILE, celebrating their respective wins at Wimbledon, Andy Murray and long-term chum Heather Watson reportedly placed £25,000 each behind the bar of a nightclub.
Which, by my limited experience of the eye-wateringly overpriced London club scene, will have bought about five drinks between them.