May Days

David Cameron and I never met. Our schedules simply clashed and much as we would have enjoyed a jolly good natter over lunch and a fine wine, it was, sadly, not to be. I did, however, do as many did and acted as a sort of unpaid advisor during his premiership. And despite our occasional differences - we did fall out over the whole messy EU business, as he forcefully stood behind every diagnosis of post Brexit doom - he was still, for my money, the best PM since Thatcher and of the current and recent crop of British political leaders the only one who stood apart as a statesman. He used his last PMQs to remind us of what we'll be missing.

Yes, yes, yes, Eton, toff, blah, blah, blether and all that but, you know, breeding. It’s never bothered me where our leaders have come from and traditionally – and Britain is nothing without tradition – class has always been more important than some republicans have dared to allow themselves to believe. In the rarefied air of world politics it takes something extra, something more than most of us have, some special chutzpah to carry off those big state occasions. And yes, yes, yes, he has a big shiny face, but don't we all some time?

No, I liked the man and if that means you must hate me because your tribal loyalty demands it then it probably says more about you than it does about me. It remains to be seen how the new guard will compare with the old but at least for the time being if things get tough there will still be the Labour Party to laugh at. But there is business afoot.

Under Captain Slow’s new regime, Hammond has already shown his slowhand technique with the EU extraction deal. David Davis as Brexit Minister has also come out for a slow release, rather than the shock therapy that many Brexiteers would prefer. But is there some strategy in suggesting we won’t be out until 2022? It may well be that the EU as we know it won’t even exist by then; maybe the delay is not so much to allow negotiation as to avoid the need for it altogether.

But in these days when Smart phones are used in place of actual knowledge, when the experts are proved wrong time after time, especially on economic affairs and when the immediacy of feelings seem to have supplanted the certainty of considered judgement, ‘all-change’ is the only principal that still holds true. And the best way to deal with uncertainty is to look it straight in the eye and deal with what it brings you, rather than spend all your time explaining what you thought should have happened and why that would have been so much better and why your life is ruined as a result.

Cripes! Blimey!

Whatever else the May days bring, if we can reverse the trend toward dependence in all matters and bring about a resurgent in British self-reliance and the stiff upper lip, they will have been a success. Foremost in the British values we must see restored is a robust sense of humour and in a move that suggests the previously unreadable Mrs May actually has one she has led the way. Only somebody with a deep and profound sense of fun could possibly have appointed Boris Johnson to head the Foreign Office.

Lemons

Who could have predicted when David Cameron finally set a date for the referendum he was forced by Farage into giving that we would end up with the second female Prime Minister in our history? But when life gives you lemons it seems you have several options. Among the advice proffered by the internet these are, variously:

• Keep them because, hey, free lemons
• Grab tequila and salt.
• Grab gin and tonic
• Throw them back (really hard).
• Squeeze them in people’s eyes.

 Although there is never a good reason given as to why life should want you offer you such a gift the original advice is that when life does indeed give you yellow citrus fruit you should make lemonade. Lemons ain’t so bad when you stop to think about it; it could be so much worse, it could be herpes... or Heseltine. Few can doubt that the Conservative dinosaurs have blood on their hands as regards Andrea Leadsom. She stepped down after a few torrid days of enmity from all sides of the parliamentary party, allowing May to be installed without a fight and without the say of the members at large.

The one constancy in big party politics at the moment is the blatant devaluation of democracy. Across the EU that democracy has been subjugated at the hand of almost faceless bureaucrats who make the decisions that the little people must not be trusted with. It was popularly feared that just as with the surprise outcome of the referendum, democracy was about to produce the ‘wrong’ result yet again. Damn you, peasants! Over the course of the last two weeks the Conservative Party – no amateurs in the political assassination game – have managed to eliminate every last pro-Brexit potential candidate. If nothing else you have to admire the machinations of the house of cards.

But, in grown-up land, things are what they are. Calls for a general election are misguided and will only set back the mission of disentangling us from the EU. What we need to do is get behind our new Prime Minister. Get behind and push. Push back at every potential U-turn manoeuvre, every hint of heel-dragging as we approach that Brexit cliff. When we go, we have to all go over this lovers’s leap together. Theresa May is not most of the population's idea of Prime Minister, but then neither was David Cameron. At least she did say “Brexit is Brexit” and we need to hold her to that.

The ironing lady is watching!

So let us watch closely and keep up the pressure to invoke Article 50 and start the formal exit negotiations. Let us make sure she despatches her ambassadorial flying monkeys to every corner of the globe to talk up our country, forge trade deals and show the world that outside the EU the future is bright indeed. In many ways she will have a freer hand than any PM in five decades to take the United Kingdom back to its rightful place as one of the foremost of nations. Let's hope she doesn't turn out to be a lemon... or herpes.