Sorry isn’t a swear word, Mrs May – but you are getting rather good at apologising

THERESA MAY is getting rather good at apologising.

She staved off a leadership challenge with her mea culpa to Tory MPs days after her election failure. On Wednesday night, it was the turn of the party’s money-men.

At a dinner at the exclusive Hurlingham Club in South West London, Mrs May thanked the donors for their support and made it clear the Tories’ loss of their majority didn’t stem from any lack of campaign cash.

She told them: “I called the election, I ran the campaign and I take responsibility.”

This show of humility — combined with a fired-up, no-notes speech — was enough to get Mrs May through the evening.

But having apologised to her party, she needs to find a way to say sorry to the country.

Win back trust

When Mrs May addressed the nation straight after the election, she got the tone all wrong, as senior Downing Street figures now admit.

Standing outside No10, she acted as if she didn’t understand that things had changed with her failure to win a majority.

Mrs May needs to correct that impression, to show the country she gets it. She must show voters she wants to win back their trust and respect.

Several close allies of hers regard Thursday — the first anniversary of her becoming PM — as the perfect opportunity to do this.

I understand Mrs May will use the occasion to set out her agenda, harking back to the speech she made when she became Prime Minister, and to say why she still thinks she is the best person for the job.

Inside No10, there is a view that what people like about Theresa May is that she gets on with the job.

So she will point to Monday’s trade talks with the Australian PM, the publication on Tuesday of the Taylor review setting out new rights for the self-employed and the start of the Repeal Bill — which puts EU law into UK law — on Thursday as evidence of this.

Mrs May, though, needs to do something more than just show that she is getting on with the job. If she is to stay until Brexit is done, she needs to patch up her relationship with the electorate.

If she doesn’t, her position will become unsustainable and those Tory ministers and MPs trying to stir up trouble at conference will find it easier to persuade people to join them.

Some of Mrs May’s most loyal allies are becoming increasingly concerned that the Brexit Secretary, David Davis, is on manoeuvres — with the intention of taking over sooner rather than later.

Those close to Davis are adamant this is not the case and that he is behaving entirely honourably.

One of the things that might help Mrs May patch things up with the country for the next couple of
years is that the alternative is so unpalatable to so many people.

A Corbyn government would not be like the Labour governments we have had most recently. It would be the most left-wing administration Britain has ever seen.

It’s worth having a bridge of tries

THE point of a transition deal is to act as a bridge between being in the EU and out of the EU.
A transition with no end destination is just a bridge to nowhere.
This is the problem with the CBI’s case, which Labour has endorsed, for Britain staying in the single market and the customs union until a UK-EU free-trade deal has been done.

By not putting any time limit on it, a deal risks putting Britain into permanent limbo – having to accept all of the EU’s rules without any say in making them.

There are those inside government who are attracted to this kind of transition deal too.
One Cabinet minister, who backed Remain, tells me: “For some, it is not really a transition – it is a permanent position.” But Leavers shouldn’t set themselves against any kind of transition deal.
A time-limited transition would be sensible.

It would give Britain time to get properly Brexit-ready, sorting out the necessary immigration and customs system and preparing future trade deals before leaving the single market and the customs union for good.

Davis oils election machine

AS I said last week, the Tories won’t win the next election unless they sort out their campaign machine.

Now there are signs new chief executive Mick Davis is beginning to get to grips with this problem.

In a recognition of where the Tories fell short in the last campaign, he is positioning digital at the heart of things by putting the research department and the communications team under a new political director, Iain Carter, who until recently was working for the Tories’ Australian election guru Lynton Crosby.
Davis has also brought in the politically savvy Brexiteer Carrie Symonds as director of communic- ations. She is credited with the Tories’ only London election gain, Zac Gold- smith’s win in Richmond.
The Tories need to get their new machine up and running quickly.

For they are now in a permanent campaign, against a fired-up, mass-membership Labour Party.
JUNIOR ministers and Tory backbenchers are getting increasingly fed up with the Cabinet.
This week’s meeting of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers was dominated by warnings that Secretaries of State must stop rocking the boat or face the wrath of the parliamentary party.
The feeling is that if Theresa May is to stay, the voters will take a dim view of the Tories using the next two years for an extended leadership contest.
That’s why the intervention from Boris Johnson’s camp on public-sector pay went down so badly.
MPs thought he was putting his own interests ahead of the party’s.

Tories can’t win spending game

THE memory of 1997 haunts the Tory party, they fear that history is about to repeat itself.
A weak Prime Minister leading a party that is split over Europe and having to rely on Northern Irish MPs to gets its legislation through will stagger on for five years before the party goes down to a catastrophic General Election defeat.

Someone particularly worried about this scenario is the Tory chairman Patrick McLoughlin, right.

In a recent Cabinet discussion on the economy he warned that between 1992 and 1997 the Tories took tough decisions, holding down spending and raising taxes.
How did the electorate reward them? By kicking them out of office and into 13 years in opposition. McLoughlin pointed out that the result of this Tory fiscal hawkishness was that Tony Blair received a golden economic inheritance, which made it much easier for Labour to increase spending and win another landslide in 2001.

His argument was that the Tories keeping a tight grip on public spending could well be counter productive.
Inside the Cabinet there are very few fiscal hawks. I am told that outside of the Treasury, the only ones are Priti Patel, the International Development Secretary, Sajid Javid, the Local Government Secretary, and David Gauke, who was in the Treasury before he became Welfare Secretary in the reshuffle.
But the Tories need to remember they’ll never win playing the spending game with Corbyn.
He will always be prepared to outbid them.