No more Mrs Nice Guy

So the party conference season has come and gone, with little to show for it except division and rancour.

Labour banned discussion of Brexit, tried to no-platform the Mayor of London, one of their most popular elected members, while a reporter had to have bodyguards to protect her from the Labour members.

The Conservative conference offered a reality-as-parody speech by their party leader, and not much else, as one member of a Question Time audience pointed out.

Meanwhile the EU Withdrawal Bill has been delayed again while a committee go over the hundreds of changes that have been proposed, and Brexit negotiations are even further delayed as Mrs May still refuses to pay the divorce bill.

Mrs May is weak and ineffectual as the leader of the current Conservative party, but might achieve something if her own cabinet backed her. It is an irony that she feels unable even to impose a reshuffle.

Mrs May should look at her record of abandoned policies and ask herself if she actually wants to achieve something in her term of office. Whether we leave the EU or stay in, she will not be PM after the next election. A good Brexit deal, one that is worth having, one won in spite of the most intemperate efforts of Brexit headbangers, would be something she could be proud of.

To achieve it will take ruthlessness, single-mindedness, double-dealing, and political savvy.

No more Mrs Nice Guy, Mrs May.