Stable May delivers three strong losses in a row

Theresa May promised us strength and stability. She’s certainly delivered on that last front, with a consistent string of high profile defeats:

As Prime Minister Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron lost a total 16 votes in the Commons in a 19 year period.

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Theresa May has lost 18 in the last 14 months alone.

— Shehab Khan (@ShehabKhan) December 4, 2018

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None of those defeats were as strong as the ones she suffered last night, though.

Strength in blunders

May lost three votes in a row. The votes were on:

• A government amendment to weaken the cross-party contempt motion (a contemptible plan from our contemptible PM).
• Actually holding the government in contempt (something the public have done for ages, but parliament had yet to catch up on).
• An amendment to give Parliament power if / when May’s Brexit agreement is rejected (power being something the government struggled to hand over, as it no longer had any).

With three losses under her belt, May’s stability could not be questioned. But when it came to the strength part, the BBC had some legwork to do:

The first 10 minutes of #Newsnight tonight was sheer madness. A shameless attempt to claim that while today might have LOOKED like a catastrophic humiliation for Theresa May's government, actually galaxy brain, it was a really good day for her because, y'know, reasons.

— Ally Fogg (@AllyFogg) December 4, 2018

I'd probably have framed this as:

'Desperate opportunists scrabble to save careers'

But hey, I don't work at a public broadcaster so widely disregarded that it had to back out of hosting a Brexit debate by public demand pic.twitter.com/UteVSxzVT3

— John Shafthauer (@johnshafthauer) December 5, 2018

May Day

Although May’s terribleness has now reached pretty much unprecedented levels, that’s okay, because so has the BBC’s. That’s why it’s been churning out stuff on why yesterday might work in her favour. It’s also why it’s been asking:

• Will Jeremy Corbyn resign over May’s historic defeat?
• What does Lynn the vicar have to say about all this?
• Will Jeremy Corbyn resign over what Lynn the vicar had to say about May’s historic defeat?

So that’s our PM. Allegedly strong and stably terrible.

Featured image via YouTube