IT was while walking in Snowdonia with husband Philip that Theresa May, it seems, decided to perform the biggest U-turn of her political career.
The Prime Minister is renowned by colleagues for sticking to a decision once she has made up her mind and even just before the Easter parliamentary recess when reporters at Westminster were once again raising the prospect of a snap poll with her aides, Mrs May’s spokesman responded with a firm denial.
“There is no change in our position on an early general election; that there isn't going to be one. It is not going to happen,” he declared.
However, it seems that after consulting with her husband, close colleagues and none other than Lynton Crosby, the elections guru, who helped secure David Cameron his 2015 election victory, the lady decided she was for turning.
A senior aide insisted the PM’s decision had nothing to do with party politics but was solely about seeking political stability so that she could get the best Brexit deal for Britain.
But party politics infects everything. It has been known that ever since she took possession of the keys of No 10 some Conservative colleagues have been quietly and others not so quietly urging her to go to the country.
The reasons are simple: with the complexity and scale of the Great Repeal Bill process about to land on Westminster a working government majority of just 17 has the prospect of making life very difficult for Mrs May as she also tries to negotiate Britain’s withdrawal and a trade deal with the likes of Donald Tusk.
Then there is the little matter of having a poll lead over Labour of 21 points; in terms of the key issue of the economy it is more than 30 points. The chance to sink Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist revolution and in the process turn her 17 Commons majority into one north of 100 appears to have proved just too irresistible.
The fact that Mr Crosby’s name has been linked to this process is intriguing and shows that even a supposedly straight up-and-down vicar’s daughter like Mrs May cannot resist electoral temptation forever.
And, there is, of course, the precedent of Gordon Brown, a son of the manse, who had the chance of calling a snap election and seeking his own mandate in the autumn of 2007 after dislodging Tony Blair from No 10 but, despite encouragement from colleagues, resisted the temptation of a snap poll. And has regretted it ever since.
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