Theresa May astonished Conservative party members by beginning her keynote speech at the party’s conference by dancing to Abba.
The prime minister boogied her way onto the stage to the Swedish pop group’s 1976 hit Dancing Queen - a tongue-in-cheek reference to the PM’s visit to Africa last month, where her attempts to dance with schoolchildren elicited comparisons with a robot.
The novel entrance was caught by news cameras and quickly spread across social media, where it drew a combination of amusement, dismay and outright horror:
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If May was hoping her on-stage moves would put an end to the robot jokes, she was sadly mistaken.
Although a few defended May’s willingness to poke fun at herself as sympathetic - and even politically savvy:
For most, it was car crash TV:
And the political gags were just too good to resist:
However, the choice of walk-on music went down predictably well at the Swedish embassy.
Even if some Abba fans felt that the Swedish supergroup’s rich back catalogue includes several tracks more appropriate to the beleaguered PM’s situation.
Continuing the self-deprecating theme, May opened her speech with references to her hitch-ridden appearance at last year’s conference, where she was plagued by a persistent cough and one of the letters on the backdrop behind her fell down mid-speech.
