Theresa May has insisted she enjoyed being prime minister and denied having to spend most of her time making sure she was not stabbed in the back by her own MPs.
Speaking to Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on ITV’s This Morning on Monday, May was pressed on how long she could remain prime minister.
“Throughout my life when I have taken on jobs I have never thought ‘oh it’s going to be like this or or like that’. I just get on and do it,” she said.
Schofield asked: “Don’t you spend a lot of time, rather than being able to look forward, looking back to make sure someone isn’t about to stab you in the back?”
“No,” May said. “For me it is actually about what I am doing to deliver to for the public and that’s why, you know, I was on doorsteps in my own constituency on Saturday afternoon talking to people, hearing from them the issues that really matter to them, that’s what drives me.”
Schofield asked: “Are you enjoying this job?”
May replied simply: “Yes.”
“Are you?” Schofield asked again.
The prime minister repeated: “Yes.”
Schofield pressed further. “Can you hang on?” he asked. “Do you feel secure in your job.”
May told him: “Yes. I am doing the job and I am going to jolly well get on and do it.
“What drives me in doing it actually is not what’s written, but what people out there want government to do.”
During the interview May was asked if she ever had the chance to “switch off” from the job.
“I never get to the end of a boxset,” she revealed. “It’s a job where you are constantly thinking about it and obviously anything can happen at any point that means you have to really be involved.”
May added that she did get some time to relax and enjoyed “cooking and walking”.
It was during a walking holiday in Wales in 2017 that May decided to call an unexpected general election.
Since then, the prime minister has been subject to persistent rumours that she could face a leadership challenge from Tory MPs after the gamble backfired and she lost her Commons majority.