Theresa May last night joked that she called a snap general election last spring simply to avoid getting out of making a speech to journalists, and that she “might do the same again this Easter”.
Talking to the Westminster correspondents dinner, the PM said of last year's dinner: “I was looking forward to this event so much that I called a general election to get out of it.
“But I can’t pull that stunt two years in a row. Or can I? I am, after all, going walking in Wales at Easter.”
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May made the decision to go to the polls during a walking holiday last spring.
In what The Sun describes as an “uncharacteristically bawdy after-dinner speech”, the Prime Minister took aim at a number of her cabinet ministers - and told a story about a home visit gone awry.
“One canvassing trip in particular sticks in the memory,” she said. “I was at the open door of a caravan and there was clearly some activity within, so I duly knocked. No answer – but the activity persisted.
“It looked like there was someone lying down. I knocked again, and put my head around the door. There was someone lying down. In fact, two people were lying down. And it wasn’t a good time to ask them if they were going to vote Conservative. They were giving a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘deep and special partnership’.
“I’m used to hearing moans on the doorstep, but this was something else.”
The Guardian reports that May acknowledged her own “Maybot” nickname, awarded to her by Guardian sketch writer John Crace for her “wooden style of answering questions”, and subsequently joked that if Boris Johnson was a smartphone app it would carry the warning “contains adult content”.
She also claimed Chancellor Philip Hammond, was “like a drier, less frivolous version of LinkedIn”, and described Brexit secretary David Davis as “Mad Max”.
