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Post by AdminSTB on May 17, 2019 8:55:05 GMT
I don't know when Theresa May first had an inkling she might become Prime Minister one day, or when she first aspired to hold the position, but how might she have fared if she hadn't had to deal with what has dominated the agenda throughout the whole of her time in office: Brexit. In 2010 she would never have imagined things would turn out they way they have.
So supposing someone else had dealt with Brexit on their watch, or the referendum had gone the other way. What would have been on the agenda? How different might her time in office been?
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Post by Merseymike on May 17, 2019 9:04:41 GMT
I don't know when Theresa May first had an inkling she might become Prime Minister one day, or when she first aspired to hold the position, but how might she have fared if she hadn't had to deal with what has dominated the agenda throughout the whole of her time in office: Brexit. In 2010 she would never have imagined things would turn out they way they have. So supposing someone else had dealt with Brexit on their watch, or the referendum had gone the other way. What would have been on the agenda? How different might her time in office been? I think she is a pretty unimaginative mainstream Conservative. Think Jim Callaghan of the Blues. There wouldn't have been anything very revolutionary! I don't think she's that great at working across boundaries, though, hence her attempt to get a larger majority. She only became leader because of Brexit, but assuming she had the same sort of majority to work with it would have been a reasonably stable affair |
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Post by polaris on May 17, 2019 13:00:50 GMT
I don't think May would have become Prime Minister without Brexit. If Remain had won the referendum, Cameron would have continued in office. And when he decided to step down, he would have been in a good position to hand over to a successor of his own choosing.
May would have carried on as a senior cabinet minister, a role which she was generally competent at (unlike the role of PM).
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middyman
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"The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of other people's money."
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Post by middyman on May 17, 2019 13:59:11 GMT
I don't think May would have become Prime Minister without Brexit. If Remain had won the referendum, Cameron would have continued in office. And when he decided to step down, he would have been in a good position to hand over to a successor of his own choosing. May would have carried on as a senior cabinet minister, a role which she was generally competent at (unlike the role of PM). Unfortunately, I cannot share your assessment of her ability as a minister. Her greatest achievement as Home Secretary was lasting so long. |
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mondialito
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Post by mondialito on May 17, 2019 15:28:16 GMT
Nick Timothy writes a speech calling the Windrush Generation 'Citizens of Nowhere'.
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middyman
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"The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of other people's money."
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Post by middyman on May 17, 2019 16:29:27 GMT
Nick Timothy writes a speech calling the Windrush Generation 'Citizens of Nowhere'. While it is fashionable to blame May, I am not sure that is entirely fair. Arrival evidence was destroyed by a previous Labour Home Secretary. May not advised of this by the Civil Service. |
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mondialito
Labour
Everything is horribly, brutally possible.
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Post by mondialito on May 17, 2019 16:47:52 GMT
Nick Timothy writes a speech calling the Windrush Generation 'Citizens of Nowhere'. While it is fashionable to blame May, I am not sure that is entirely fair. Arrival evidence was destroyed by a previous Labour Home Secretary. May not advised of this by the Civil Service. I agree that the blame isn't entirely May's, but the failures were permissible due to the anti-immigration mood which Timothy happily pandered to in real life and would have made much worse in this scenario. |
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middyman
Conservative
"The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of other people's money."
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Post by middyman on May 17, 2019 18:13:22 GMT
While it is fashionable to blame May, I am not sure that is entirely fair. Arrival evidence was destroyed by a previous Labour Home Secretary. May not advised of this by the Civil Service. I agree that the blame isn't entirely May's, but the failures were permissible due to the anti-immigration mood which Timothy happily pandered to in real life and would have made much worse in this scenario. The policy of “if you shouldn’t be here, bye bye” is fine by me, the problem, as so often it seems, is how it is applied and what preparations were made for its implementation. |
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Post by Adam in Stroud on May 17, 2019 20:33:33 GMT
Dreadful Home Secretary. Osborne would have succeeded Cameron had Remain won BrexitRef You are making me feel a whole lot better about the BrexitRef result. |
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Post by curiousliberal on May 17, 2019 21:36:43 GMT
The Grauniad thinks he might have tried to pull a fast one, too: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/03/ruth-davidson-tories-scottish-conservative"Except that, in this other 2019 Tory leadership contest – the one that never happened – Cameron had a succession plan that isn’t on the cards this time. He had intended, after winning the European referendum, to reshuffle his cabinet for the remainder of his premiership. One of his moves would have been to confer a peerage on the Scottish Tory leader, Ruth Davidson, and make her defence secretary, sitting in the House of Lords. The aim was to help to position her to be Cameron’s chosen successor.
At some point between then and Cameron’s departure, the plan went, Davidson would “do a Douglas-Home” and move to the Commons – as Harold Macmillan’s successor, the Earl of Home, had done in 1963. Davidson would remain in the government, renounce her peerage, and be fast-tracked into a safe Commons seat. There would be a byelection, and she would then be in the Commons, in a box seat to win the leadership – the best bet to stop Johnson, and all with Cameron’s backing." |
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middyman
Conservative
"The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of other people's money."
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Post by middyman on May 17, 2019 21:59:02 GMT
The Grauniad thinks he might have tried to pull a fast one, too: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/03/ruth-davidson-tories-scottish-conservative"Except that, in this other 2019 Tory leadership contest – the one that never happened – Cameron had a succession plan that isn’t on the cards this time. He had intended, after winning the European referendum, to reshuffle his cabinet for the remainder of his premiership. One of his moves would have been to confer a peerage on the Scottish Tory leader, Ruth Davidson, and make her defence secretary, sitting in the House of Lords. The aim was to help to position her to be Cameron’s chosen successor.
At some point between then and Cameron’s departure, the plan went, Davidson would “do a Douglas-Home” and move to the Commons – as Harold Macmillan’s successor, the Earl of Home, had done in 1963. Davidson would remain in the government, renounce her peerage, and be fast-tracked into a safe Commons seat. There would be a byelection, and she would then be in the Commons, in a box seat to win the leadership – the best bet to stop Johnson, and all with Cameron’s backing."Quite a lot to go awry there! |
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Post by curiousliberal on May 17, 2019 22:01:55 GMT
The Grauniad thinks he might have tried to pull a fast one, too: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/03/ruth-davidson-tories-scottish-conservative"Except that, in this other 2019 Tory leadership contest – the one that never happened – Cameron had a succession plan that isn’t on the cards this time. He had intended, after winning the European referendum, to reshuffle his cabinet for the remainder of his premiership. One of his moves would have been to confer a peerage on the Scottish Tory leader, Ruth Davidson, and make her defence secretary, sitting in the House of Lords. The aim was to help to position her to be Cameron’s chosen successor.
At some point between then and Cameron’s departure, the plan went, Davidson would “do a Douglas-Home” and move to the Commons – as Harold Macmillan’s successor, the Earl of Home, had done in 1963. Davidson would remain in the government, renounce her peerage, and be fast-tracked into a safe Commons seat. There would be a byelection, and she would then be in the Commons, in a box seat to win the leadership – the best bet to stop Johnson, and all with Cameron’s backing."Quite a lot to go awry there! This is coming from the man who delivered a referendum with no white paper, and who also proposed sending a crack team into the heart of Damascus to kill Assad. |
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Post by johnloony on May 17, 2019 23:22:45 GMT
The whole premise of the thread doesn't make sense. The whole reason why Mrs May become PM is because she did have to deal with Brexit. If Remain had won the referendum, David Cameron would have continued as PM until after 2020. Corbyn being Labour leader would have ensured a Conservative victory in the 2020 general election, and Cameron's successor would have been chosen in 2021ish. By then, lots of potential candidates would have spent ages jockeying for position, and Mrs May would be rejected as being too old or too wooden or whatever.
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Post by Jonathan on May 18, 2019 16:57:01 GMT
Of course she does not become PM unless Cameron resigns for having dropped the ball on Brexit. But let's say the Brexit vote was 52-28 Remain and Cameron jumps for joy and breaks his neck on landing. She maybe still does not become PM, but let's say she does. She would be an nasty authoritarian incompetent weak vacillating waste of time and hang on grimly long after anyone with any decency or self respect would have engineered a face saving departure. Of course maybe some folk would be more critical than I am being. George Osborn and Boris Johnson rip each other apart during the beginning of the leadership contest and May is chosen as a compromise candidate. |
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Post by tonyhill on May 21, 2019 5:57:42 GMT
Most of these responses are not really addressing the question, which wasn't how likely is it that May could have become Prime Minister in other circumstances than Brexit. I know it is difficult to identify the problems that this country faces through the dense fog that Brexit has cloaked us in, but there are many: a lack of affordable housing and insufficient house building; the dire state of the NHS; ditto care provision; a police force which has inadequate resources to deal with crime; defence forces lacking resources to deal with external threats; etc. May has espoused some interesting ideas from time to time (probably not her own): for example, the involvement of workers on boards of management; the so-called Dementia Tax; and, er..., but has shown herself completely unable to implement them. She has surrounded herself with, to say the least, mediocre cabinet ministers (Grayling, Johnson, Williamson, Davis, Fox) so that those who are actually trying to achieve something, like Gove, Mordaunt and Rory Stewart are exceptions. So my answer to the question would be that she would have done very little to address the country's fundamental problems, whatever you might believe them to be; would have pursued a few ill-thought out strategies suggested to her by the clueless advisors she seems to be adept at picking; done the necessary fire-fighting; but basically have presided over drift without having identified the underlying structural changes that were taking place in our society that might have necessitated government input to ensure that the UK remains a reasonably fair, tolerant and liberal democracy.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2019 21:32:48 GMT
The Grauniad thinks he might have tried to pull a fast one, too: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/03/ruth-davidson-tories-scottish-conservative"Except that, in this other 2019 Tory leadership contest – the one that never happened – Cameron had a succession plan that isn’t on the cards this time. He had intended, after winning the European referendum, to reshuffle his cabinet for the remainder of his premiership. One of his moves would have been to confer a peerage on the Scottish Tory leader, Ruth Davidson, and make her defence secretary, sitting in the House of Lords. The aim was to help to position her to be Cameron’s chosen successor.
At some point between then and Cameron’s departure, the plan went, Davidson would “do a Douglas-Home” and move to the Commons – as Harold Macmillan’s successor, the Earl of Home, had done in 1963. Davidson would remain in the government, renounce her peerage, and be fast-tracked into a safe Commons seat. There would be a byelection, and she would then be in the Commons, in a box seat to win the leadership – the best bet to stop Johnson, and all with Cameron’s backing."If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times, but I don't believe Ruth wants to move to Westminster. I also don't think that a cynical "Douglas-Home move" would wash these days. |
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Post by gwynthegriff on May 21, 2019 21:43:23 GMT
The Grauniad thinks he might have tried to pull a fast one, too: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/03/ruth-davidson-tories-scottish-conservative"Except that, in this other 2019 Tory leadership contest – the one that never happened – Cameron had a succession plan that isn’t on the cards this time. He had intended, after winning the European referendum, to reshuffle his cabinet for the remainder of his premiership. One of his moves would have been to confer a peerage on the Scottish Tory leader, Ruth Davidson, and make her defence secretary, sitting in the House of Lords. The aim was to help to position her to be Cameron’s chosen successor.
At some point between then and Cameron’s departure, the plan went, Davidson would “do a Douglas-Home” and move to the Commons – as Harold Macmillan’s successor, the Earl of Home, had done in 1963. Davidson would remain in the government, renounce her peerage, and be fast-tracked into a safe Commons seat. There would be a byelection, and she would then be in the Commons, in a box seat to win the leadership – the best bet to stop Johnson, and all with Cameron’s backing."If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times, but I don't believe Ruth wants to move to Westminster. I also don't think that a cynical "Douglas-Home move" would wash these days. What could possibly go wrong with such a plan ?  |
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Post by gwynthegriff on May 21, 2019 21:44:42 GMT
I don't think May would have become Prime Minister without Brexit. If Remain had won the referendum, Cameron would have continued in office. And when he decided to step down, he would have been in a good position to hand over to a successor of his own choosing. May would have carried on as a senior cabinet minister, a role which she was generally competent at (unlike the role of PM). In which alternative universe was this the case? |
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Post by curiousliberal on May 21, 2019 22:07:33 GMT
The Grauniad thinks he might have tried to pull a fast one, too: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/03/ruth-davidson-tories-scottish-conservative"Except that, in this other 2019 Tory leadership contest – the one that never happened – Cameron had a succession plan that isn’t on the cards this time. He had intended, after winning the European referendum, to reshuffle his cabinet for the remainder of his premiership. One of his moves would have been to confer a peerage on the Scottish Tory leader, Ruth Davidson, and make her defence secretary, sitting in the House of Lords. The aim was to help to position her to be Cameron’s chosen successor.
At some point between then and Cameron’s departure, the plan went, Davidson would “do a Douglas-Home” and move to the Commons – as Harold Macmillan’s successor, the Earl of Home, had done in 1963. Davidson would remain in the government, renounce her peerage, and be fast-tracked into a safe Commons seat. There would be a byelection, and she would then be in the Commons, in a box seat to win the leadership – the best bet to stop Johnson, and all with Cameron’s backing."If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times, but I don't believe Ruth wants to move to Westminster. I also don't think that a cynical "Douglas-Home move" would wash these days. I could only see her moving after her time was up as leader of the Scottish Tories, tbh. |
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Post by finsobruce on May 22, 2019 7:10:26 GMT
I don't think May would have become Prime Minister without Brexit. If Remain had won the referendum, Cameron would have continued in office. And when he decided to step down, he would have been in a good position to hand over to a successor of his own choosing. May would have carried on as a senior cabinet minister, a role which she was generally competent at (unlike the role of PM). In which alternative universe was this the case? I think polaris maybe using the "Grayling scale" of measurement. |
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