Why wasn’t Philip May with his wife, Theresa, on the plane to the G20 summit in Buenos Aires today, when she needed him the most? Just about every other world leader travelling to what is being billed as the most critical summit for years had their other halves in tow when they stepped down onto the tarmac at Ezeiza International Airport.
And what a sizzling show they made. As always, the tiny French president, Emmanuel Marcon, and his equally petite wife, Brigitte, cavorted around like teenagers, grinning at each other and holding hands tightly. For once, Donald Trump and his Amazonian wife, Melania, were clasping each other’s hands – the right hands this time – as though they were first time lovers.
So too were Canada’s first couple, Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, who were snapped coming off their plane smiling adoringly at each other like Cheshire cats while China’s President Xi Jinping and his delicate First Lady Peng Liyuan looked like a couple of movie stars as they stood to take pictures as they emerged from their plane.
By contrast, Theresa May cut a lonely, if not exhausted, figure coming down the steps of her jet. It is not surprising the Prime Minister looked so glum after what must have been one of the roughest weeks of her life.
What is more surprising is that Philip, the man she describes as her rock and who she always turns to for advice, was absent for this G20 meeting which may well be one of the most crucial international summits she has been to during her premiership. How she is perceived in Buenos Aires by her global peers this weekend – and how that perception bounces back into the UK airwaves – will be vital and will inevitably influence how she is seen over the next few days leading up to the vote.
The PM has already been ticked off a few days ago by Trump for doing a potential deal with the EU which makes a US trade deal even harder. Harried at home by opponents on all sides of the Brexit debate, she is under immense pressure to use this summit to rescue the international reputation of her Brexit deal. At the same time, she has to play the strong – and stable – woman to weave her magic diplomatically to strike up new trade deals.
May also said, before touching down in Buenos Aires, that she would raise the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi with Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and voice concerns about Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the Yemen conflict.
Not an easy weekend ahead, then. Yet the ballsy approach is one that Theresa May seems to rather relish, if not revel in. By all accounts, she liked the description of herself as a “bloody difficult woman” and trades on her mantra of “My whole philosophy is about doing, not talking.” It’s the head girl, head down approach.
That makes me wonder if her decision to wear her most boring black trousers and travel alone without Philip was made out of choice to gain maximum impact. May the Stoic. Going it alone, showing she can tough it out with the men without her man by her side. This could be just the message she wants to send. It’s the one that Angela Merkel has perfected over the decades.
There is something hugely admirable in May’s stoicism, and her resolute determination to get her deal through parliament. Even some of the most obsessed Remainers and Brexiteers say privately they can’t but help admire this bulldog tenacity, almost Stakhanovite stubbornness in the face of vitriol from her own party and the wider commentariat. Some polls suggest a growing groundswell of support from the public who are starting to admire her fortitude.
Which is perhaps why the latest opinion poll showing a 5% lead for the Conservatives over Labour when, considering the civil war within the Tory party, is not as astonishing as it first seems.
She is a psychological puzzle as much as a political enigma. So what makes her carry on?
Most leaders in her position would have buckled by now. Professor Ian Robertson, a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist at Trinity College, Dublin, believes that it is May’s stoicism that has become her coping mechanism under stress. “She developed a stoical and determined approach right from her time at the Home Office. It served her well there, and has done since the Brexit vote.”
Since stoicism is a virtue much admired in British culture, the stiff upper lip attitude and all that, he says her approach goes down well with voters. “She is a conscientious and clever woman. She has moral fibre. I don’t think she has such a big ego like so many other mainly male politicians. Her stoicism is her coping style, her way of protecting herself.”
Of course, she is clever too, he says, and like all politicians, will have dissembled at times. “Appointing people like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove and others into the Cabinet was smart, if not disingenuous. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. She’s ambitious but I don’t think so ambitious that she would be reckless.”
And if May loses the vote by a big margin – say up to 100 votes – on her Brexit deal in the House of Commons? How would she react? And what would she do if the Tory men in grey coats were to quietly ask her to stand down after losing the vote?
Roberston predicts that she would try to put together some sort of national coalition to contain the emergency, and then step aside. “I don’t think she would hang on and fight it out. She is more balanced than that. Everyone has limits.”
Robertson also believes she has the sort of personality which would cope well in defeat. “I think she would be more of a John Major than a Tony Blair. Major has done well out of power and she, like him, is more balanced. Blair has not.”
And she would also have her rock by her side. As Lord Owen pointed out in his book about political leaders and illness, all political leaders need toe-holders, the phrase first coined by FD Roosevelt’s advisor, Louis Howe. Toe-holders are the men and women who hold politicians back from doing foolish things and from hubris.
“Philip is more than a toe-holder – he is her scaffolding. He is critical, critical, critical to the way she works.”
There’s another driver to May’s character. She has a deep Christian faith which she told Kirsty Young on Desert Island Discs is “part of who I am and therefore how I approach things … [it] helps to frame my thinking and my approach”.
The songs she chose also give a flavour of who she is. As well as Abba’s Dancing Queen, she chose “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” sung by the Wesley Chapel Congregation, a hymn she listened to when in her father’s church when she was alone with him and her mother. More unpredictable for an Anglican priest’s daughter was the choice of a Thomas Aquinas’ chant “Pange Lingua”, loved by Catholics who sing its Tantum Ergo at Benediction.
May, a highly unusual, stoical leader, will be hoping for some blessings this weekend.