Meanwhile, in England

Had Andrea Leadsom not pulled out of the contest, she would have been our next Prime Minister. It is as if because Mr Trump won the Republican Primaries, he became President, because there is a Republican majority in Congress.

Does being a mother make you a better choice for PM? No.

Journalist: Do you feel like a mum in politics? Why and how? How does it affect…?

Leadsom: Yes. So really carefully because I don’t know Theresa really well, but I’m sure she will be really sad that she doesn’t have children so I don’t want this to be ‘Andrea’s got children, Theresa hasn’t’ – do you know what I mean? Because I think that would be really horrible.

“But genuinely I feel being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country. A tangible stake.

“She possible has nieces nephews, lots of people. But I have children who are going to have children who will directly be a part of what happens next.”

When The Times reported this, Leadsom denied it, saying she had made clear to the Times that “nothing I said should be used in any way to suggest that Theresa May not having children had any bearing whatever on the leadership election”.

I am not a mother. I have a stake in the future of my country- everyone, not just narrow family interests. But the extreme Right-wing Conservative party activists who get to choose between Mrs Leadsom and Theresa May, Home Secretary since 2010, hear that Leadsom is a Mother, and May is not- a point in favour of Mrs Leadsom- and that Mrs Leadsom is being unfairly attacked by the Liberal Media. Anger and Resentment matter more than truth. Leadsom voted against equal marriage, and favours fox hunting, where hounds tear foxes apart for the enjoyment of the onlookers; hounds are taught to do this with fox cubs thrown to the pups; and hounds are killed when they can no longer keep up with the pack, because they are seen as useless. The party members who can vote see these things as positives.

Consider how the Christian Today reported the matter. A pop-up suggested six other articles which might interest me, including “Persecuted church” and “Christian Martyrs”. Andrea Leadsom, one of two candidates to be the next British prime minister, has caused an uproar by suggesting that being a mother means she has a greater stake in the country’s future than her childless rival Theresa May.

A little-known junior energy minister until she emerged as one of the most ardent voices in the campaign to leave the European Union, Leadsom is the outsider in the contest to succeed David Cameron as Conservative leader and prime minister.

“Ardent voices”. She is Our heroine, our type of person. “Uproar”- they‘re attacking her, and therefore Us. “Outsider”- but we will show them.

Leadsom denounced the Times article on Twitter as “gutter journalism” and “the exact opposite of what I said”. The Times stood by its story and released an audio recording of Leadsom making the comments, which was played on Saturday morning news bulletins on all the main radio and TV stations.

Instead of the story being woman says vile thing, lies about it, is shown to be lying, the story is, there are two sides to this, Christian Andrea and the vile Liberal press (which the Left loathes as Rupert Murdoch’s). Leadsom, a devout Christian… has said she would swiftly launch the legal process of exiting the EU and end freedom of movement rights if elected. She will do what The Country has Chosen! May will delay! May may even quibble about free movement, and let in immigrants! (Never mind that this is the only way to avoid tariffs decimating UK exports, and May’s hard line on immigrants as Home Secretary.)

“She was talking about what motivates her personally,” [junior defence minister and Leadsom supporter Penny] Mordaunt told BBC radio. “This is an attempt I think by a paper that has declared for the other candidate to smear Andrea.” This is the message Christian readers are intended to take away.

Leadsom’s bid, which has enthused some of the more staunchly eurosceptic people on the right of the party, had already been marred by questions over whether she had overstated her professional experience in finance. Actually, she lied, but this is not examined here.

While facebook shows me lots of articles from The Guardian, putting a view I find congenial, those Tory activists hear this.

Christian Today article.

The Daily Mail has a good article from childless Jan Moir on this. Praise where praise is due. One commenter wrote,

We see right through your smear campaign, DM. What deal have you done with May that will only become apparent after the event??? And please explain to us how you supported Brexit and now support a Remainer who is part of the establishment that your readership so thoroughly despises??

In the event, however, Mr Trump, having won the referendum on a platform of lies and exaggeration, has agreed to step down from the contest, and Jeb Bush will be PM instead. What happened? Yes, she would have been incompetent as well as wrong-headed in charge, but few people can ever be persuaded to see that of themselves.

Oh, I was irritated that she stepped down just as I finished drafting this post! I wrote it, went on facebook, and found there would be no leadership election after all, the Men in Suits had stitched it up, unable to trust their own party members.