At the 2017 Conservative Party conference in the UK, Prime Minister Theresa May delivered an absolute train wreck.

First, was a comedian pranking by delivering a “P-45” form (pink slip to Yanks) from Boris Johnson, then she spent something like 15 minutes largely unsuccessfully battling a cough and a frog in her throat, and finally, the theme logo for the conference began to drop letters off the backdrop.

It’s hard to imagine a more excruciating hour. One that was meant to re-establish the prime minister’s authority over her party ended in pity from an audience who could scarcely bring themselves to look her in the eye. Open ridicule would almost have been a kinder reaction.

Theresa May had always intended her speech to be personal; she just had no idea it was going to get this personal. She began by trying to rid herself of her Maybot image. Her election campaign had been too presidential. Too scripted. She said, reading awkwardly from a script. Even when she is trying to be engaging, sentences don’t come naturally to her.

“The British. Dream. That. Is what I am. In politics. For,” she repeated leadenly time and again as she tried to reinvent herself as a three-dimensional entity. But each time she said it, she only sounded more automated. Emotional intelligence is even harder to master than artificial intelligence.

Then the British Dream turned into a nightmare. First the comedian Simon Brodkin, dressed as a conference delegate, wandered up to the stage. “Boris asked me to give this to you,” he said, handing her a P45. Which Theresa gratefully accepted. Because in her heart of hearts, this was what she had always really wanted. Being PM just wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. It was too stressful. No fun.

………

It rapidly got worse. Once Brodkin was escorted out the hall, it was the turn of Theresa’s voice to make its own protest. By going awol. This time she knew what words she wanted to say, she just couldn’t get them out as her voice had its own psychosomatic, narcissistic, breakdown. She tried to clear her throat. She drank water. Still nothing came out. Eventually the chancellor handed her a cough sweet which temporarily did the trick.

“The British. Dream. That is. What I. Am in Poli. Tics for,” she croaked in a barely audible whisper. By now almost everyone in the audience was feeling almost as uncomfortable as her. People started muttering and staring at the floor. Opera heroines have died a less public, less agonising death.

………

As she reached her final appeal for the party to stop squabbling – a bit rich after she had spent the previous three days saying how united the cabinet was – the frog got the upper hand again. This time it didn’t limit itself to obstructing her throat, it also hopped across the stage and started knocking letters off the slogan, Building a country that works for everyone, on the screen behind her. First the f of for disappeared. Then the last e of everyone fell to the ground. Theresa’s world was literally falling apart around her. 

Seriously, this absurdity would have deemed a step too far by Monty Python in the day.

She could have bitten off the head of a kitten during the speech and done better.

^*Since all but about 8 years of Winston Churchill’s political career.^†
†Seriously. Aside from 1939-45, this guy was a f%$#ing horror show.