If the polls are borne out in the coming snap election, the Conservative Party will have a level of support not seen since 1979. The combined right-wing vote would be the biggest since the thirties. Since the early 1990s, the Conservative Party has been trapped at a vote level of between 30 and 36 percent. Under Theresa May’s leadership, the party has been polling in the low 40s. Since the snap election was announced, it’s surged to between 46 and 50 percent, though there are now signs that it may be falling back.

Theresa May, whom headlines loudly declare is the most popular prime minister in decades, is conducting a hermitic and increasingly erratic campaign. Dodging televised leadership debates, she also appears only in small, tightly controlled public gatherings where no questions are asked. She delivers scripted speeches and repartee in contrived contexts, such as Prime Ministers Questions, or in short media interviews, but otherwise is withdrawn.

This suggests that at least some of her “popularity” is based on the fact that, by avoiding too much exposure, she is able to attract a variety of projections. For traditional Tory voters, she occupies Thatcher’s fantasy role as a strict, matronly English headmistress; for others, she is an effective administrator with a history of centrist pragmatism; for the Telegraph, she wears rather fetching shoes. In this context, and left unchallenged, May’s evasiveness can be presented as a kind of classy inaccessibility.