THEY are the words that could come back to haunt Theresa May.
Just three weeks before the snap General Election, the Prime Minister said: “If I lose just six seats, I will lose this election and Jeremy Corbyn will be sitting down to negotiate with Europe.”
Of course, the Conservatives lost 13 seats, but Mrs May now says she won the election by dint of winning more seats and votes than Mr Corbyn’s Labour Party.
Therefore, she can stay in No 10 to run a minority administration helped by Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionists.
While the Tory leader seems intent on braving it out, she might not be in control of her destiny. Many of the party’s MPs are livid at how she botched the campaign, most notably by her humiliating U-turn on social care costs, to which she added insult to injury by denying anything had changed.
Within hours of the scale of the electoral failure emerging, the blame game began.
Prominent Tory MP Heidi Allen hit out at the Prime Minister’s co-chiefs of staff, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, as she predicted Mrs May had a maximum of six months left in Downing Street.
The South Cambridgeshire MP told LBC radio station: “Frankly, if a leader picks people who advise them so badly, and cannot see that they are being advised so badly, then that tells me, I’m afraid, that that’s not the leader that we need.
“Clearly, they weren’t the right people and therefore, by default, to me that means the whole leadership organisation just isn’t
functioning properly because it is not responding.
“The voters are our customers. Clearly we got our product wrong, which tells me that the sales team have got it wrong as well.”
Totnes Tory MP Sarah Wollaston tweeted: “I cannot see how the inner circle of special advisers can continue in post.”
The influential ConservativeHome website said the “consensus view” among Tory backbenchers and ministers was that Ms Hill and Mr Timothy “must go”. Mr Timothy is thought to have been responsible for the last-minute insertion into the manifesto of the controversial social care changes.
Another source said there was a clear feeling among senior Tories that the Prime Minister had relied on too small a coterie of advisers, stressing: “That’s got to change as well.”
Sir Patrick McLoughlin, the party chairman, was also singled out for criticism by senior colleagues.
Calling on Sir Patrick to “fall on his sword,” one Government minister said: “A lot of personal blame is being attached to the party chairman, who appears to have been completely invisible both during the campaign and since. There’s a general feeling the party chairman should go.”
One ministerial source noted: “Much will depend on the reshuffle, so let’s wait and see. But she might now be too weak to sack many people. She’s running around after her own shadow.”
The Prime Minister is expected to reshuffle some places to refresh the look of her relaunched government as early as this weekend, with the Thatcherite International Trade Secretary Liam Fox tipped to be sacked.
Sir Patrick could also be in the firing line.
However, an enfeebled Mrs May can ill afford to start making more enemies, who could become a focal point to lead a backbench rebellion to oust her weeks or months down the line.
The first meeting of the influential 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers is set to be fiery after the UK Parliament returns next week.
Anger is expected to be vented but its chairman, Graham Brady, made clear there was “no great appetite” in the party for a leadership contest or, indeed, another General Election.
Nigel Evans, the former Deputy Speaker, summed up the brooding mood among many Conservatives when he said: “I don’t think you can underestimate the achievement of what we’ve just managed, which is to steer a liner that was on a destination towards a very, very big majority and then in the distance there was something called ‘social care,’ where we basically did a full-frontal assault on our core vote, which were the elderly.”
He claimed the Tory campaign was “hijacked by ourselves,” which meant instead of talking about issues of strength such as Brexit and the economy, the party talked about social care, winter weather payments, taking free lunches off children and fox hunting.
“It was an amazing own goal.
“We didn’t shoot ourselves in the foot; we shot ourselves in the
head.
“And to be honest, I’m quite astounded that we did as well as we did do in making the gains in Scotland and indeed actually being two per cent ahead of the Labour Party.”
Mr Evans added: “But quite frankly, let’s be fair, we were up against Jeremy Corbyn; a leader who two-thirds of his own party wanted rid of.
“It’s quite remarkable what we’ve achieved.”
While it is to be expected that the likes of Jeremy Corbyn, Kezia Dugdale and Tim Farron would call for Mrs May to resign, it is another matter when Tory colleagues do so. Anna Soubry, the former business minister, was quick to brand the manifesto “dreadful” and the election results a “disaster”.
“She should consider her position,” declared Ms Soubry, who held on in Nottinghamshire.
Last night, Downing Street announced that Chancellor Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Home Secretary Amber Rudd, Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon and Brexit Secretary David Davis would keep their roles.
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