It all started so well for British Prime Minister Theresa May.
She was giving the speech of her life at her party conference in Manchester. May laid out her party's future, announced new policies and responses to hot issues like the Grenfell Tower fire and Brexit. She even cracked some jokes and made personal, even humble remarks.
And then this happened.
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A protester snuck into the conference and handed the prime minister a P45 (a pink slip) -- the form handed to workers to signal an end in employment.
The disrupter in question was comedian Lee Nelson (real name Simon Brodkin). He handed her the form while saying, "Boris asked me to give you this," a reference to Theresa May's foreign secretary Boris Johnson. There is a lot of speculation that Johnson has been undermining May with a view to becoming prime minister himself. Most recently he wrote an article outlining his view of how Brexit should be executed, an article which was perceived by many as undercutting May's position on Brexit.
May accepted the piece of paper and carried on as the protester was escorted away. Some people seemed amused by the prank. Others were less impressed.
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As if that interruption wasn't bad enough, May also suffered a coughing fit. Luckily, someone was on hand with a cough sweet.
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She managed to address the spluttering with a little more panache, she even made a joke (!) at the expense of the Chancellor Philip Hammond, quipping "I hope you noticed that ladies and gentleman, the Chancellor giving something away for free!" Haw haw.
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But that is not all. The piece de resistance ... the icing on the cake ... the cherry on top ... of this hot mess occurred when the sign behind her started falling apart.
It originally read 'building a country that works for everyone,'. First the 'F' dropped off mid-speech...
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Giving people so many opportunities to make the same joke.
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The 'E' was next to go.
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Regardless of your political stance, there's no denying the whole speech resembled a scene from The Thick of It.
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You just couldn't make it up.
Topics Politics
