When your new holiday pal turns out to be Theresa May – Susan Morrison

As the cocktails flow around the hotel pool, new friends are made and secrets told, only for the morning after to reveal they are a bit like a clingy version of the former Conservative Prime Minister, Theresa May, writes Susan Morrison.

Have you ever befriended a Theresa May type on holiday? (Picture: PA)

Holidays are dangerous things, particularly if you get excited by the phrase, ‘all-inclusive’ and a tendency to make pals super fast.

The Scots are dangerously good at it. No other nation boozes and bonds like we do.

Who among us has not found ourselves poolside, late on a warm night with a new pal, usually from what they call the Home Counties, usually called something like Marjorie, usually married to someone called something like Trevor?

Complete stranger, three days ago. Now she’s spilling out red wine and the intimate details of her marriage. Meanwhile, you’ve taken this poor creature to your heart, you boozy agony aunt. Marjorie has no one to talk to, because it is a well-known fact that the southern English do not talk to one another.

There are vague memories of many cocktails involving a mysterious beverage that might just have passed muster as gin.

The song I Will Survive may have been sung. Marjorie may have upchucked in the shrubbery, or over the side.

You are Marjorie’s new best friend, whilst you are tipsy, but when the sun hits the hangover and you sober up, you quickly suss the reason why no one talks to Marjorie. Basically, you got smashed with a clingy Theresa May.

Just under a fortnight later there’s that inevitable scene at the airport. The conversation is stilted and awkward. Trevor is giving looks that would fry eggs. He suspects you know too much about his marriage. And his finances.

Your flight is called. You bound to freedom and home.

Imagine if you were trapped for another two weeks? Imagine you and Marjorie were on the Diamond Princess. Or in a Tenerife hotel. That moment at the airport, stretched out for another fortnight. Like being stuck in a lift forever. With Theresa May.