Theresa May’s paranoid speech about EU election fixers wasn’t so strong and stable

Tomorrow she’ll tell us: ‘The days ahead are filled with opportunity but also of danger. For example, this morning a giant purple mouse in my loft tried to persuade me to offer the French favourable trade agreements on beetroot imports.’

There may be another reason for Theresa May’s speech – she’s copying Donald Trump (Reuters)

It’s encouraging to see Prime Minister Theresa May show her full range of moods, because her speech outside Downing Street, in which she told us there were “European threats against Britain, deliberately timed to affect the election”, illustrated she can not only be strong and stable, she’s also adept at being deranged.

It was so entertainingly unstable you expected her to be led away by the police for her own safety, as they said, “Come along Mrs May, if the Belgians try to attack you again we’re here to protect you.”

Tomorrow she’ll tell us, “The days ahead are filled with opportunity but also of danger. For example, this morning a giant purple mouse in my loft tried to persuade me to offer the French favourable trade agreements on beetroot imports. It had been put there by Charles de Gaulle, who hates me because he wants to wear my high heels. So we should be thankful I’m here, because I’m stable and will reject this or any other attempt to damage our great nation by turning Her Majesty the Queen dark yellow.”

Hopefully with the right treatment, the Prime Minister’s paranoia won’t lead to other conditions. Otherwise she might interrupt the talks by saying, “Before we move on to tariffs on pitta bread, can everyone wash their hands again. And WHY HASN’T THE LATVIAN GOT HIS HAIR NET ON? I can’t negotiate when the place is full of germs.”

Or maybe she’s right, and the Europeans did have a plan to undermine Britain’s negotiating stance in order to change the result of the election.

Some sceptics might suggest this would be difficult, as it was Theresa May who called the election two weeks ago and no one else knew it was going to happen except her, but these days it’s fairly simple to plant an election-calling chip into the brain of a Prime Minister.

From there the Europeans could be certain that two or three speeches in Europe about how tough negotiations were likely to be would be all that was needed to make everyone vote for Jeremy Corbyn.

It’s not just the speeches she objects to, she also told us we were in danger because, “The European press has misrepresented us”. And there’s something else the Tory party is steadfast about, a press that misrepresents things.

As soon as any section of the press misrepresents any of our political figures in any way, the Conservative Party is the first to point out it isn’t true that Jeremy Corbyn will make it illegal to be the Archbishop of Canterbury unless you’re transgender, as stated in the newspapers.

You can be certain that if any publication tried to misrepresent a party leader by showing them in a peculiar pose as they ate an item of food, Theresa May and the Conservatives would be outraged, and insist the whole election was held again to make it fair.

This is also why The Sun newspaper was ecstatic on Wednesday about Theresa May’s speech, because if there’s one thing Rupert Murdoch can’t stand, it’s a foreigner who tries to influence the outcome of a British election.

Another point she made was that these European tricks illustrate how important it is, for us to elect a strong leader for the Brexit talks. If she hadn’t run out of time, she’d have said, “So if you’re watching, Jeremy Corbyn, what the British people need to know as we enter these tough and challenging negotiations, is would you kick a Dane in the crotch? I would. I wouldn’t think twice, and he wouldn’t get up again after I’d done him with these shoes. Go on Corbyn, I challenge you, let’s see you cripple a Dane, I bet you can’t. And you reckon you can protect our bacon industry?”

This is why it was touching that she added, at the end of her list of European crimes against Britain, “By contrast, I made it clear I mean no harm to our European neighbours.”

Exactly. When has the Conservative Party ever made unpleasant remarks about the Europeans or the European Union?

Indeed, the whole referendum was carried out in the best of spirits, with the Leave campaign making gentle points and softly spoken speeches, that were so endearing they could easily have been put together and made into a gentle ballad for Barry Manilow.

Then his fans would scream “Breaking Point, do Breaking Point”, and start fainting as he crooned, “We’ve lost control of our borders, they’re swarming over here in their millions, from Poland or whatever and now we’re at Breaking Point.”

Then he’d announce, “Now I’m going to sing ‘We want our country back’” and they’d swoon all over again.

But despite all the years of politely telling Europe we’re sick to death of handing over money for a bunch of pig ignorant bureaucrats who only want to make sausages illegal and come over here to have a free liver transplant they don’t need, they can’t show some manners in return.

There may be another reason for Theresa May’s speech – claiming the election is being undermined by foreigners is the tactic that seemed to work for Donald Trump. So she could be copying him. Next week she’ll say “As well as guaranteeing a secure deal for Britain, I can also confirm I have grabbed many a woman’s pussy”.

But so far, whatever the tactics, she seems to be getting away with them, and Labour need to learn from this. So next time Diane Abbott wants to recite a pile of incoherent nonsense figures, instead of telling them to a radio presenter she should stick them on the side of a bus. She’d get away with it then.