From Huffpost.
The ‘President May’ strategy was fully on show as the PM took the stage. The Cabinet were in front of her, not alongside her, reduced to spectators as much as the rest of us. Tory handlers were so reluctant to allow any contact between the media and the Cabinet that there was even a ‘buffer zone’ of several rows of Tory activists placed between us. After the event was over, ministers were whisked away before any microphones could be shoved in their faces.
May’s speech was crammed full of ‘May too-ism’, repeating “the Government I lead” again and again, as well as other me-myself-I lines like “every vote for me and my team”, “join me on this journey”, “come with me as I lead Britain” “stand with me as I deliver for Britain”.
In the questions afterwards, she was asked several times if this manifesto – with its stress on state intervention and limits to markets – was a rejection of Thatcherism. Her line “There is no ‘Mayism’, there is good solid Conservatism” gave a nice soundbite for the TV news, but no one believed her. The very word ‘Conservative’ has been reduced to the small print (literally on leaflets and her battlebus), while her own political vision has been put in banner headlines.
And the manifesto itself makes plain she is trying to place her tanks firmly on the centre ground, or her version of it. One of the most fascinating sections of the 84-page document is this sentence: “Rather than pursue an agenda based on the supposed centre ground defined and established by elites in Westminster, we will govern in the interests of the mainstream of the British public”.