Politics is a brutal business. Just ask Theresa May

Alex Cole-Hamilton is the Lib Dem MSP for Edinburgh Western

Listening to Theresa May choke out her last meaningful words as Prime Minister on Friday morning, I felt two things.

The first was incredulity. She had the gall to evoke the memory of the Kindertransport which rescued thousands of Jewish children from the Nazis in Czechoslovakia, in one of the finest acts of compassion to which this nation has ever been party. Yet this displayed a striking lack of self-awareness because as Home Secretary she had the opportunity to emulate that mission by opening the arms of this country to the children of Syria. She actively prevented them from coming here.

But the second emotion I felt, on an entirely human level, was empathy. I loathe much of her legacy, but I do recognise that she was driven by her own moral compass and demonstrated astonishing resilience in pursuit of the course she’d chosen.

Theresa May announces her resignation outside 10 Downing Street. Picture: AFP/Getty

Politics is brutal. You work your socks off, year after year, starting off toiling on no-hope campaigns in forgotten streets before you begin to climb the greasy pole. Failure is far more commonplace than victory which when it comes can itself be fleeting. You give much of your waking hours to it, you start to shape your life around the rhythms of election cycles and your political party becomes like a second family.

In truth, political activism can be a cruel and jealous mistress, but most of us stick with it and keep coming back for more – it’s who we are. There’s a line from Kipling which has always captured that for me:

“Or watch the things you gave your life to broken

“And stoop to build them up with worn out tools.”

Anyone who has ever lost an election they expected to win, picked themselves up and got back on the trail will understand the importance of those words. Having a political family around you at that point makes it all the easier to get back in the saddle.

But like actual families, sometimes they break apart. I saw that happen in a single, moving tweet from an old adversary on Thursday evening. Cat Headley ran against me for the Labour Party in the Holyrood election of 2016. She is an articulate, generous and fiendishly intelligent opponent. I have always liked her.

Cat had resigned from the party earlier this year due to frustrations around the Labour leadership’s ambiguity over Brexit, but I know she’d always hoped to rejoin. On polling day she wrote this:

“I have voted. I stood at the polling booth for five minutes before I finally did. I went to mark a box three times before I finally did. But when I did it wasn’t for Labour. And I’m actually close to tears over it as silly as that sounds. I hope I don’t have to do that again.”

My own party loyalty was tested several times in the days of coalition but that sense of family kept me going. I can’t imagine the anguish that such a dedicated servant to the Labour cause, like Cat, must have felt in voting for another party and she certainly wasn’t alone. Just ask former deputy PM, Michael Heseltine – himself suspended from the Tory Party for voting Liberal Democrat.

These are days of tectonic change in the politics of Britain. The fault lines of Brexit are cleaving apart political parties and old loyalties. Theresa May’s tenure in office and her legacy has ended many political careers, aside from her own. It’s tempting to rejoice in her downfall, but I recognise how far she had to climb to get there.

Alex Cole-Hamilton is the Lib Dem MSP for Edinburgh Western

Politics is a brutal business. Just ask Theresa May – Alex Cole-Hamilton