This week Theresa May let rip at Boris Johnson. It was liberating to see a female politician who no longer craves approval
There is something curiously powerful about a woman who doesn’t need to be liked. To watch Theresa May let rip in parliament this week – denouncing her successor’s casual willingness to break international law, with an authority that can come only from having confronted very similar choices – was to realise the advantages conferred by no longer craving other people’s approval.
That she chose to remain in parliament at all is testament to her particular brand of imperviousness. Given the humiliations heaped upon her by her own party during her time in office, she might have been particularly tempted to crawl off and lick her wounds rather than stick around as a jobbing backbench MP. But May does not seem troubled by that kind of pride.
