200

It’s the little things that count.  And in the case of her un-resounding win last night when 70% of her backbenchers voted against her in the vote by all Conservative MPs, it was the little things that got her to 200 votes.   

200 is an important psychological number.  Suppose she only had achieved 199 votes.  It would always have been referred to less than 200.   

So that one vote that got her past 199, where did it come from?  That may seem an odd question given all MPs voted.  But it is not so odd when you hear that two MPs who had been suspended from the party whip had, only hours before the vote, their suspensions lifted.  Every vote counts.   

And so it was that Andrew Griffiths, the Burton MP suspended after allegedly bombarding two young women with lewd text messages, voted for Mrs May.  

200 votes.   

Mrs May knew she possibly needed every vote in a secret ballot.  Given the voting ended up being largely down lines of those who support Remain and Leave, hers is, of course, a rather pyrrhic victory.  But she couldn’t be sure of victory.  So this, along with all her other actions of discrediting colleagues and misleading parliament and the public, we see a leadership pattern of behaviour.  

Doesn’t how she achieved last night’s 200 tell you the awful truth about Mrs May’s leadership?  It is rotten to the core.