Theresa May’s campaign goes into meltdown as Tory candidates publicly call it a ‘clusterfuck’

Theresa May’s general election campaign has taken another wrong turn, as several Conservative Party candidates have come out and criticised the PM. In an extraordinary move, they’ve publicly said not only has she “fucked it up”, but that people were now “voting for Jeremy Corbyn” instead of May.

“A clusterfuck”

On Wednesday 31 May, The Huffington Post reported that Conservative candidates had spoken to them about their concerns over May’s campaign. It said that one anonymous candidate was “pretty fucked off”:

I’m pretty fucked off… It’s hard to understand how people in London who get paid a lot of money made such a clusterfuck… Colleagues up and down the country are just fucked off. She said she wasn’t going to call a general election, and they’ve totally fucked it up…

Yes, Prime Minister

The anonymous candidate also said May’s campaign was like something out of the 1980s sitcom Yes Minister. And they went on to say: “People are now beginning to vote for Jeremy Corbyn. I find that hard to understand”.

Another candidate reportedly told The Huffington Post that:

If Jeremy Corbyn wasn’t leader of the Labour Party we would lose this election – and we would deserve to. Theresa May might get a big majority but she has definitely lost power in the party.

The worms turn…

The candidates’ comments come after some of the right-wing press also turned on May’s campaign. As The Canary previously reported, The Spectator published a column [paywall] written by Political Editor James Forsyth, saying [paywall] that “Corbyn piles pressure on May by agreeing to BBC debate”. Forsyth noted [paywall] that:

Corbyn’s move is clever politics. He has little to lose, and by turning up, he’ll be able to accuse May of being both too scared to defend her record and of arrogantly taking the voters for granted. It will enable him to continue his attack on her leadership style, an attack that has more of a chance of succeeding following her social care U-turn.

And while Forsyth said [paywall] that Corbyn’s decision wasn’t “without risk”, as the other leaders may “gang up on him”, he concluded [paywall] that:

The sense that the momentum is with Labour at the moment, means that Corbyn’s decision is being seen as a bold move rather than a desperate one.

But it’s not just The Spectator that has criticised May’s campaign. The Evening Standard, The Financial Times and even The Sun have come out and trounced it.

Seven days

May’s failure to appear on the BBC debate on 31 May just compounds the fears of some in her party that she’s lost control of her campaign. After several U-turns, decimated poll leads, and now a public berating by her own candidates, the PM has a week to sort herself out. Otherwise, there could be a nasty surprise waiting for her at the ballot box on 8 June.

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