Theresa May should clear out her cabinet

ONLY six months ago Theresa May seemed all-powerful. Yet the snap election that was supposed to deliver a landslide for the Conservatives instead took away their majority, and with it every shred of the prime minister’s authority. The minority government is paralysed: it lacks the numbers to get anything meaningful through Parliament; the cabinet is unable to agree on anything, or to disguise the fact; and the party is terrified of ousting its feeble leader, lest the subsequent civil war let in the newly rampant Labour Party.Zombie governments like Mrs May’s can stagger on for a long time. John Major spent most of his six years in office in the 1990s fighting assassination attempts by his own backbenchers, yet the ship of state chugged on. The difference today is that Britain is steaming towards the Niagara Falls of Brexit. If Mrs May does not take charge, Britain will plunge over without a deal in March 2019. She should start by replacing her mutinous, incompetent cabinet with a new crew.