It’s finally happened – Theresa May has officially resigned as Tory Party leader, signalling her departure from Number 10.
The past three years have been a bumpy old ride for the PM – and not just because of Brexit.
She won’t be remembered as the longest-standing prime minister, nor the most-loved among Tory ministers – but she may go down in history as the most awkward.
From fields of wheat to her infamous Maybot performance, here are five times Theresa May was so Theresa May during her time as prime minister that we the public collectively lost our minds.
*That* conference speech
Theresa May’s 2017 Conservative Party conference speech went from bad, to worse, to “make it stop”.
The toe-curling debacle began with a sore throat, leaving the PM spluttering through her lines – so much so that chancellor Philip Hammond was forced to offer her a cough sweet during her speech. So far, so typically awkward.
Then things started to get really bad. Four months after May’s snap election produced disastrous results for the Tory Party, prankster Simon Brodkin – aka Lee Nelson – marched to the front of the auditorium to hand the PM a fake P45, telling her: “Boris asked me to give this to you.”
Just when it seemed as if nothing else could possibly go wrong, the set *literally* began falling down around her, with letters falling off the slogan emblazoned behind the PM during the speech. (Anyone else cringing?)
Fields of wheat
Who could forget the iconic moment the PM admitted that the naughtiest thing she had ever done was… run through a field of wheat?
The bizarre confession came during an interview with ITV just days before the 2017 general election when Julie Etchingham tried to dig into the Tory leader’s girlhood as a vicar’s daughter.
“What’s the naughtiest thing you ever did?” Etchingham asked.
“Oh, goodness me. Well, I suppose… gosh. Do you know, I’m not quite sure. I can’t think of the naughtiest thing… Well, nobody is ever perfectly behaved, are they?,” May flustered.
“I mean, you know, there are times when… I have to confess, when me and my friend, sort of, used to run through the fields of wheat, the farmers weren’t too pleased about that,” she said.
“Sorry, but enough is enough,” one voter tweeted. “We can’t elect some wheat-smasher to our highest office. Think of the crops!”
The Maybot
Sometimes May’s awkwardness got the better of her… and sometimes she absolutely bloody owned it.
When footage of the prime minister doing some uber-cringey shimmying with kids in South Africa emerged, her routine was quickly dubbed the Maybot.
But rather than sheepishly hanging up her dancing shoes, the PM decided to share her unorthodox moves with the world.
Storming onto the stage of the Tory Party conference in 2018 while ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen’ blasted out, May treated the whole world (or at least the people who care about the Tory Party conference) to her dance moves. You do you, Theresa.
How Theresa May Unwinds
Okay, so being prime minister has got to be a high-stress job, with journalists firing questions at you about your every decision.
So you would think that a friendly query about what she does in her free-time would have been a breeze. Think again.
“How do you cope and how do you unwind?” one factory worker asked during a visit to Newcastle.
“Erm, well... it’s err... there’s several things I like to do. I like walking, so we err... my husband and I enjoy walking when we can, taking holidays walking,” May replied.
“I enjoy cooking, which has a benefit, because you get to eat it... as well as make it,” she continued. “I have over 150 cookbooks, so I spend quite a lot of time looking at cookbooks.”
The chip incident
A word of advice for politicians – *never* allow your photograph to be taken while you’re eating. Ever.
Who could forget Ed Miliband and his attempt to take down a bacon sandwich in 2015? Never had anyone made the mundane task of eating a sandwich look like such a mammoth job... until Theresa May was faced with a cone of chips in 2017.
Looking at the seaside staple like she had never seen a chip before in her life, the PM’s attempt to get through the greasy treat was painful to watch.