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Coffee House Shots

What does Theresa May want?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Daily News, Politics

4.42.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 September 2023

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Theresa May's new book, Abuse of Power, will not be a gossip-fuelled account of her time in No. 10. Instead, it'll be an account of how powerful people make mistakes, and how institutions corrupt. What's the point of the book, and has the former Prime Minister landed on a real, punishing problem in British politics?

Kate Andrews speaks to Fraser Nelson and Gavin Barwell, Theresa May's former chief of staff.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

The spectator combines incisive political analysis with books and arts reviews of unrivaled authority.

0:06.1

Subscribe today for just £12 and receive a 12-week subscription in print and online

0:11.7

and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher absolutely free.

0:15.4

Go to spectator.co.uk slash summer.

0:23.1

Hello and welcome to a special Saturday edition of Coffee House Shots.

0:26.2

I'm Kate Andrews and I'm joined by editor Fraser Nelson and Gavin Barwell,

0:29.9

former number 10 chief of staff to Theresa May.

0:32.8

And it's the former prime minister who is the topic of today's podcast.

0:36.8

Theresa May is publishing a new book, The Abuse of Power, that looks at her time in Downing Street

0:42.8

and the turbulent tumultuous time that it was not just amongst politicians here in the UK,

0:48.4

but in Europe as well. Fraser, you do a book review for the telegraph this week,

0:55.6

which it looks like you've given three out of five stars.

0:57.9

Why don't you give us a quick sum up of your thoughts on the book and then we can dive into some

1:02.0

of the specifics? Well Theresa May has not written a memoir. Obviously what a journalist like me

1:07.5

would want to go to is find out what she was really thinking at these crucial moments,

1:11.8

what made her call the snap election, what went through her mind when she found out she'd lost

1:15.6

the majority, but she doesn't really look at this. So it's not really an historical document

1:21.8

in the way that the typical memoirs of former premieres tend to be.

1:26.7

She has instead decided to look at other people's mistakes or rather the abuse of power

1:34.1

she sees it, not her own, the abuses of power in government in general. I give it three

1:40.0

stars because despite my disappointment at what she could have said but didn't,

1:44.4

I think this is a really important subject. Why do calamities happen in government?

...

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