Theresa May doesn't get angry – she gets to work. Like the rest of us, the former prime minister has doubts, ideas, emotions and ambitions, but for decades she kept them something of a secret. May managed to become leader of a nuclear-armed, permanent member of the UN Security Council without anyone seeming to know what she thought about anything outside of home affairs. That takes god-like reserves of self-restraint.
Yet there is one moment in her long parliamentary career that – at least for me – stands out from all others. It was a political rarity: she lost her temper in public. Not in a big way, of course. Even irate May is fairly reserved. But the fact that it happened, and the stunned reaction of the recipient, was absolutely delicious. And she was absolutely right to do so.
It was the afternoon of 11 April, 2019, and May was making yet another marathon statement to the House of Commons following some inconclusive European Council meeting. If stamina and strength of will were enough to secure a Brexit deal, the UK would have left the EU the moment of May's first audience with the late Queen. But by April 2019, even May was showing signs of pressure
Or perhaps that's not quite right – perhaps she was simply feeling freed by failure? Recall that on 15 January 2019, the Commons rejected her EU withdrawal agreement by a vote of 432 to 202 – the biggest defeat for a sitting government in history. It rejected it a second time on 12 March by a scarcely improved 391 to 242, and a third time on 29 March by 344 to 286. Her departure was only a matter of time
Back to 11 April. Sammy Wilson, whose Democratic Unionist Party was propping up May's minority government, stood up, deeply unhappy. You really have to watch it – I've clipped it with the right timestamp for you and everything. Wilson asks, his voice and manner dripping with disdain:
"In these negotiations the EU demanded £39 billion, and got it; an unnecessary Irish backstop, and got it; a withdrawal agreement that would tie our hands in future negotiations, and got it; and extensions that go against commitments given by the Prime Minister, and got it. Can she give us any example of any EU demand that she has actually resisted?"
To which May replied with genuine anger in her voice:
"I could give plenty of examples, but I will give the right hon. Gentleman just two. We resisted a Northern Ireland-only customs territory in the backstop and made sure it is a UK-wide customs territory. He says that the EU demanded £39 billion. No, it did not. It started off at £100 billion, and our negotiations got it down."
Again, you have to see it to understand the full force – and recall the thousands of times May had quietly endured mild, modest and severe lashings of disrespect from the DUP, Tories, Labour, the media, everyone really. For fans of The Office, Times Red Box editor Patrick Maguire quipped at the time: "Brent finally confronts Finchy".
There is so much to say about Theresa May. The 'nasty party' speech, the work to combat modern slavery, her curious dependence on twin chiefs of staff, the fact that she wanted to be prime minister more than remain in the EU, her obvious sense of duty, her political arrogance at the start of her premiership, her ability to keep buggering on by the end, her decision to lurk on the backbenches and occasionally thwack Boris Johnson. But that flash of anger is what I'll remember.
Through it all – not least as the prime minister who lost a majority and failed to get Brexit done – May remained remarkably static. She is still the hard-working, composed and dutiful vicar's daughter who was first elected to represent Maidenhead 27 years ago. A lot of water has flowed since then, but in a sense, nothing has changed.
