Soon this weather turned into a storm. Then she was submerged. “Her most notable characteristic, her former tutor at Oxford once said, ‘is the ability to switch without blinking from one fiercely held belief to another.'” In Number 10, she said she would finally show what she was made of and I will stick to my guns. It didn’t work out so well.
Maybe it was a matter of presentation. She’s certainly never been very good at it, at least in public. Yet even that didn’t matter as much on the way up, when those in power discovered that the woman who was wooden and occasionally funny in the pulpit was warm and funny in private. Heartily mocked for a speech in 2014 in which she criticized British cheese imports (“It. Is. A Disgrace!”), detractors were won over when they discovered she could laugh and use the same phrase against herself. Fans still claim she has a “fantastic sense of humor” and can even be “a little flirty” in person. As Prime Minister, however, the public failed to see this personal charm.
But above all, her inflexible management of her party and the institutions beyond it – from the Bank of England to the financial markets – sowed panic and ultimately led to her departure.
At every stage she seemed to show an iron will to pursue a radical course until she was forced – too late – to change course.
It started on September 23 after the mini-budget, when she spent a week not commenting on the chaos, only to come to his defense. Three days later she blamed the chancellor for the 45p tax rate cut, then canceled the measure. “We understand,” she said, making it clear she was apologizing for nothing.
The fact that she was still defending the 45p cut in TV interviews shortly before the U-turn reinforced the impression that – like a badly dubbed film – Downing Street’s words and actions were no longer in sync.
Ten days later, she said she would not cut spending to pay for the other tax cuts. But two days later she fired her great friend and ally Kwasi Kwarteng and appointed Jeremy Hunt to do just that.
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