You can't keep Mrs May down, says Nigel Hastilow

Step forward Theresa May.

You may think a woman who has been dogged by disaster, bad luck and miscalculation at every turn is hardly the right candidate for this top honour. But you would be mistaken. After all, it’s Christmas and she’s still Prime Minister.

There were plenty of people never thought she would make it this far.

Momentum Labour leader Jeremy Corby, for one, said he’d be in Number 10 by now.

Many of Mrs May’s Conservative colleagues were also keen to see the back of her by Christmas, as were some of our ‘friends’ on the other side of the English Channel. Yet in spite of 2017 being our Prime Minister’s ‘annus horribilis’, she’s battling on.

You could say this shows a stubbornness and lack of self-awareness of monumental proportions. Or you might more charitably describe it as remarkable resilience and determination.

Every time I think of Mrs May these days I find myself singing that old song ‘Tubthumping’ by anarchist collective Chumbawamba. It’s a fairly tedious tune about boozing but it’s repetitive chorus goes: ‘I get knocked down but I get up again, you’re never going to keep me down.’

Nothing better describes Mrs May’s year.

Whatever disaster she endures, she somehow gets back up again ready to take another punch.

It all started so well. This time last year, she had been in power for a few months, there was no rival on the horizon, she was getting on with Brexit and she exercised total control over her Cabinet and party. Her advisers Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill were running the country behind the scenes, deciding who should have access to their Glorious Leader and telling her what to say. Hard to believe now, but last January Mrs May was Britain’s most popular politician with approval ratings exceeding any previous Tory Prime Minister since the Second World War.

Everybody loved her; nobody took Jeremy Corbyn seriously. Labour was in despair as the Prime Minister was master of all she surveyed.

By Easter, things had started to go wrong. Chancellor Philip Hammond introduced a Budget which clobbered the self-employed and small businesses. He was forced into a humiliating U-turn – not the ideal platform from which to launch a snap General Election campaign.

The decision was allegedly taken by Mrs May during a walking holiday in Wales but it would soon trip her up. The polls put her comfortably in the lead, suggesting she could increase the Conservative majority from 17 to more than 100.

Hideously, the Tories issued a manifesto promising a ‘dementia tax’, which upset their loyal elderly supporters. This was rapidly dropped yet Mrs May claimed ‘nothing has changed’.

Outrageously, Jeremy Corbyn whipped up fervent support among young voters by promising to write off student debt and abolish tuition fees.

Mrs May was kept away from ordinary voters and off the TV screens while Jezza worked the crowds. The Conservatives ran a nightmare election campaign and, to universal astonishment, Mrs May’s majority in Parliament disappeared. Mr Corbyn was the hero of the hour.

Most party leaders would quit at that point. But Mrs May clung on in defiance of plotters and malcontents. She shed a few tears and got into more trouble by not saying sorry to the MPs who lost their seats. She soon made matters worse with an inept visit to the scene of the Grenfell Tower disaster where she again avoided any contact with ordinary people, making it look as if she didn’t care about their tragedy.

The summer was taken up with stories of Brexit disaster, conspiracies to get rid of Mrs May, speculation about her possible successors and the question of when – not if – she would be forced out. Then came the Conservative Party conference. It was billed as Mrs May’s very last chance. She would have to reinvigorate her colleagues, set out a clear vision of the future and re-establish a grip on her Government.

This was a spectacular failure. The set fell apart, a protestor handed her a P45 and she lost her voice. She could hardly finish reading the speech. Nobody was interested in what she said, merely in whether she could reach the final sentence. And still things won’t go right. Grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory, she travelled to Brussels to complete the first round of her Brexit deal with Jean-Claude Juncker only to remember she hadn’t squared it with the Democratic Unionists who have the power to bring down the Government.

Now she’s lost her close friend and deputy PM Damien Green amid laughable sex and porn allegations and she’s suffered a Commons defeat on the Brexit. And yet, despite this horrendous year, Tory MPs are now desperately urging Mrs May to stick it out maybe even until 2021. Astonishing.