Theresa May’s failed gamble

HER political career has been defined by caution. So it is cruel for Theresa May, and delicious for her enemies, that it may have been ended by one big, disastrous gamble. Eight weeks ago she called a snap election, risking her government for the chance to bank a bigger majority against an apparently shambolic Labour opposition. With the Conservatives 20 points ahead in the opinion polls, it looked like a one-way bet to a landslide and a renewed five-year term for her party. But there followed one of the most dramatic collapses in British political history. As we went to press in the early hours of June 9th, the Tories were on course to lose seats, and perhaps their majority.

The balance of forces in Parliament means that any number of outcomes is possible (see Britain section). But none of them will be the “strong and stable” government that Mrs May said the country needed when she called the vote. The talk back then was of a Conservative majority of over 100 MPs. The best case for the Tories today is a wafer-thin majority under a prime minister whose authority may never recover. Labour’s only hope of forming a government would be through a gravity-defying deal with other parties. Another election—Britain’s fourth national poll in little more than two years—may be on the way.