Bernard Ingham: Theresa May's enemies are close at hand and without mercy

Theresa May and her Cabinet met in Newcastle on Monday.

WINSTON Churchill once dispensed sage advice to future leaders of the Tory party. He told a new, excited young MP who sighted 'the enemy' opposite him: 'The Opposition occupies the benches in front of you but the enemy sits behind you.'

So what’s new? Too often I told Margaret Thatcher that her Parliamentary party was her worst enemy. And if Theresa May has candid advisers rather than yes-men, they must have been telling her the same tale for months.

You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief in No 10 yesterday when they got the PM safely into the long summer recess.

I do hope they are not living in a fool’s paradise. After all, nearly 175 years ago, Benjamin Disraeli said: “A Conservative Government is an organised hypocrisy.”

There is no telling yet where that hypocrisy will land Mrs May. This is partly the price she is paying for having Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Opposition.

Neither Tory Brexiteers nor Remainers can quite bring themselves to believe that they could open the celebrated black door of No 10 to Corbyn and his Momentum mob. How else do you explain their behaviour?

It is time they heeded DisraeIi again: “No Government can long be secure without a formidable Opposition.”

It may be argued that the PM is as safe as houses when she is up against the weakest, least credible and exceedingly dangerous official Opposition for years.