The magnificent resilience of TMay ploughing on relentlessly against all the odds
And ordinary voters are beginning to give her credit
The week before Christmas and the PM looks set to have another uphill task once again this afternoon facing yet again a marathon grilling by MPs after she reports on last week’s abortive mission to Brussels.
Her position is very straightforward. The referendum outcome must be honoured but she has been determined to do it in a manner that causes the minimum of damage to the economy. The deal that she got in Brussels in November might not be ideal but, as we have seen, it is the best there is and Mrs May is determined to go on trying to win agreement for it.
Chances of success look pretty thin but the strategy has always seemed to be that when faced with the huge problems of a No Deal then what she has got might be seen as a better alternative. The numbers don’t stack up that much but she is sticking with her strategy.
The one bit of positive news is that she is starting to get some recognition from ordinary voters and that might help her along the way. This was from the latest Opinium Poll
Almost half (47%) of voters now see Theresa May has brave, up from 43% in October. Similarly, 41% now see the prime minister as decisive, the highest since the election last year.
47% now also see Theresa May as someone that sticks to their principles, the highest figure recorded for her, even from before the general election.
She’s helped by the fact that her biggest opponents, the ERG gang and Corbyn have yet to come up with a convincing alternative.
Rees-Mogg did himself no good in the aftermath of Wednesday’s confidence vote when he went on television saying he did not accept the result and that Mrs May should quit anyway. Arch Brexiteer, Nadine Dorries, showed more class with her tweet saying that she respected the result.
What looks to be Corbyn’s biggest mistake was not to move a Commons confidence vote in the aftermath of the government’s triple defeats earlier in the month and other opposition parties are trolling the LAB leader on this.
Meanwhile the betting markets make it 62% chance that the UK won’t leave the EU on March 29th.
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