David Cameron will submit his resignation to Queen Elizabeth on Wednesday, making May, the current home secretary, the leader of the conservative party and the UK’s newest prime minister. Andrea Leadsom, the current energy minister, dropped out of the running for the position on Monday, clearing May’s path to victory.
After a chaotic period in which both pith helmet-fetishist Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, a character deleted from The Thick of It for unbelievability reasons, were knocked out of the running, May and Leadsom were the final two contenders for the position. Leadsom, already the underdog, scored a howler of an own goal over the weekend when she suggested that she would be a better prime minister than May because she has children and May does not.
In the wake of the vote to leave the European Union, however, being prime minister of the UK is easily the worst job in the UK, and it might be the worst job in the world. May will be tasked with negotiating the Brexit, which is a truly thankless task that will almost certainly result in some combination of broken promises to voters (most likely in the form of curbing migration) and a substantial loss of jobs, tax revenue, and spending. David Cameron was so happy not to have the job anymore he literally started singing on his way out:
Wow, Cameron announces his resignation as prime minister, then walks back inside *singing* while still mic'd: pic.twitter.com/wb4adNcCnk
— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) July 11, 2016