U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May tried to convince people she’s no lame duck by insisting she intends to lead her Conservative Party into the next election. Her own lawmakers chuckled at the idea.
After a weekend that saw one newspaper claim to know the date in 2019 when May is planning to quit, the premier jumped at the chance to stop the rumor mill during a visit to Japan. Asked whether she’d still be in her job by 2022, when the next vote is due, her response was unequivocal.
“Yes,” she told ITV News in Kyoto. “There’s been an awful lot of speculation about my future which has no basis in it whatsoever. I’m in this for the long term. I’m not a quitter.”
Problem is no one believes her. In the run-up to June’s snap election, May took the Tory poll lead from 20 percentage points down to 2 points,
