Tom Richmond: Leave the bunker and show us who you are, Mrs May

Tony Blair corrupted the country; Gordon Brown bankrupted Britain and David Cameron betrayed the national interest with his fatally flawed referendum on the totemic issue of European Union membership.

And then there’s Labour’s dismal poll ratings which are comparable to those accrued by Michael Foot in 1983.

This masks Mrs May’s growing difficulties over Brexit, not least with the abrupt resignation of Sir Ivan Rogers as Britain’s ambassador to the European Union on the first working day of 2017.

Even Sir Ivan’s decision, blaming “ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking” just 12 weeks before the PM triggers Article 50 to formally begin the Brexit negotiations, was eclipsed by the latest ruminations over Labour’s dismal poll ratings and the revelation that Jeremy Corbyn has excluded his deputy, Tom Watson, from strategy talks.

Asked by former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell to name the members of the party’s strategy committee, the normally rumbustious Mr Watson replied rather feebly: “I don’t know.”

Yet the absence of a credible Opposition is doing Mrs May no favours whatsoever as the country becomes fatigued of her two favourite soundbites.

Irrespective of whether the Supreme Court rules that Parliament, and not the Cabinet, must invoke Article 50, the Tory leader can’t maintain her ‘Brexit means Brexit’ pretence without setting out her negotiating priorities.

And, over the festive period, I lost count of the number of occasions when parrot-like Ministers – including those in the overseas aid department – summed up policy announcements by saying this was a Government for all and ‘not the privileged few’. Is Downing Street so controlling, and so paranoid that someone might come up with an original idea, that this is all Ministers are allowed to say because no one is totally certain of Mrs May’s political philosophy?

Just because Labour is unelectable, and the Tory majority in Parliament is a slender one, should not justify the apparent lack of ambition on Mrs May’s part when this is the one trait that Britain needs in abundance if it is to prosper under Brexit while paying off the debts bequeathed by previous premiers.

She needs to remember that all political careers end in failure – every Prime Minister since the war, with the possible exception of Huddersfield-born Harold Wilson, would attest to this – and needs to start making some substantive reforms that have the potential to change the country for the better.

If she does so, Mrs May might – just – have sufficient credit in the bank when her party starts twisting the knife over the terms of Britain’s departure of the EU. If she can point to a wider legislative programme, and its benefits, she might be able to keep her Government together until the 2020 election.

However, rather than floating policy ideas and then backtracking at the first sound of dissenting voices, it’s time that Mrs May shared the country’s pain, came up with some plans and stuck to her guns. In short, she should relax and have more confidence in her own moral compass, whether it be her own Christian values which are dearly held and her belief that capitalism can, and should, be more ethical and that state intervention can work.

After all, the so-called ‘just about managing’ families – the very people that the PM is trying to woo – certainly don’t feel any better off.

They can’t get an appointment with their GP; failings in social care won’t be masked by an above-inflation three per cent council tax rise; hospitals are in a perpetual state of crisis; there’s no energy policy; disillusioned headteachers are quitting in record numbers; the roads are gridlocked and the latest increase in rail fares is, frankly, an insult to passengers.

They’re not happy. And then Mrs May’s government has the temerity to award a knighthood to Whitehall mandarin Sir Mark Lowcock, permanent secretary to the Department for International Development, who has presided over a £285m airport in St Helena where planes can’t land because of cross-winds. That £285m could have paid for thousands of home visits to the elderly by carers.

Though I admire the Prime Minister’s decision to be more low-profile than her more media-conscious predecessors, Mrs May risks becoming more of a control-freak than Gordon Brown.

She needs to trust others to do their job, escape her Downing Street bunker and start seeing the challenges for herself in the real world. It does not bode well that she’s not visited Yorkshire since becoming PM, an omission which will not endear her to those sceptics who have little faith in Mrs May when she struggles to utter the words ‘Northern Powerhouse’ with any conviction. For, while Brexit is the defining issue of the Parliament, Britain will be better placed to withstand economic turbulence if the foundations are in place to maximise the North’s untapped potential as a driver of growth and prosperity.

This extends beyond the divisive issue of elected mayors; it’s about Government and Prime Minister grasping the size 
of the challenges and the opportunities that await. If not, Theresa May will find herself in a political ‘jam’ of her own making, and have little to show for 
her efforts.

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