Quote of the day

From The Guardian (here):

The prime minister tries to sound thrilled by the future, but all the while her political body language cries out for the past. When talking about industrial strategy, she praises digital innovation. But her chief policy interest in the internet has always been how better to control it when terrorists and paedophiles thrive in its ungoverned recesses.

She says the things exuberant Brexiteers want to hear about the opportunities for Britain beyond the confines of the European Union. But she negotiates as if lost in a forest of terrible options, feeling her way to the path of greatest continuity. She is holding out for a way to change everything while keeping things the same, handling each crisis as it comes without dealing with the underlying problems, and so sowing the seeds of the next crisis.

Eventually the crisis will come that overwhelms her completely. But until then, May’s awkward political destiny is set: to be resisting and leading change at the same time; to be forced out into the world when she would rather stay at home; and to march reluctantly to a revolutionary drum when she looks as if she would rather be standing still.