There is much to ponder in that icy interview Theresa May gave for the latest edition of US Vogue. Its author, Gaby Wood, revealed: “She says she doesn’t read much history and tries not to picture how things will be in advance.” Not read “much” history? Is that the same as not going to the gym much or not doing much volunteering?
We sympathise. Working lives are busy. Perhaps May does in fact take the odd volume of Thucydides or Christopher Clark or Antonia Fraser off the shelf, flick through it negligently and then put it back, before cracking on with the job of triggering article 50. And if an interviewer were to inquire what historians May reads on this partial basis, she surely wouldn’t be hubristic enough to reply, like Sarah Palin on being asked to name the newspapers she read: “All of ’em!”
Continue reading...