The first 100 days for a new leader are meant to set the tone for their time in office. They try to look busy, full of ideas and dynamic. Theresa May’s approach since becoming Prime Minister has, however, been more measured and focused on putting distance between the Cameron/Osborne era as well as setting out her own agenda.
Mrs May has been quite brutal is signalling a shift from David Cameron’s premiership. Despite only having won a General Election around a year before and securing an unexpected Parliamentary majority, the May government looks and feels completely different. May and her new Cabinet have sometimes quietly, some noisily, been dismantling many of the policies that Cameron held dear. Whether it was closing the climate change department, abolishing the panel of economic advisers, scrapping a health and social care taskforce, or getting rid of a Chancellor, May has shown political steel.
She has made decisions on Hinkley Point and Heathrow both considered too difficult by David Cameron; read ‘too politically difficult’. May has the political confidence that Cameron sometimes appeared to lack.
Her open approach, allowing colleagues to air their opinions, when deciding policy is also a shift from the ‘close friends’ ways of Cameron. But Mrs May does the deciding with her own very close, and small, team. These wider discussions have though been keeping the media full of ‘well placed sources’ talking about splits particularly over Brexit and grammar schools.
May is already showing that she is not a PM that will be buffeted by day-to-day events and will only say something when there is something to say. A marked difference from other recent PMs. Ironically, it is an approach that the leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, is also adopting. This can lead to slim pickings for the media on some days which could lead to more speculation and rumour being rife.
There is no doubt the Brexit will totally dominate Mrs May’s time in office regardless of what else she does. However much she will try to push her own agenda on grammar schools or restructuring company law to get workers onto Boards, there will only be one issue by which she will be measured – the Brexit deal.
In turn that means there will pressures within her own party that are, for the moment at least, being contained. The final deal, by its very nature, will delight some and dismay others. It is at this point that the pressures will burst forth.
That very majority that Cameron secured will not big enough under these circumstances. A majority of just into double figures will decline through by-election defeats and resignations (enforced or otherwise). Even with the support of the Northern Irish unionists, the May Government will need to be disciplined in Parliament.
So Mrs May is building her political steel now for the battle that will happen by 2019, at the latest. Whether any split or dissent will be enough to lose the Conservatives the election in 2020 will also depend on the state of the Labour Party. If the current polls are anything to go by then Corbyn will struggle but if Labour looks united by then and the Conservative are split from top to bottom then that could alter.
There is at the end of the day, no way Mrs May can completely escape the Cameron/Osborne era.
