May’s friend lambasts Grant ‘Schnapps’

A close friend of Theresa May has heaped ridicule on Tory plotter Grant Shapps and backed the Prime Minister’s husband Philip to pull her through.

Catherine Meyer, wife of the ex-British Ambassador to the United States Sir Christopher Meyer, mockingly referred to the former party chairman as Grant ‘Schnapps’, after the potent spirit.

German-born Lady Meyer said: ‘I get really angry about all those conversations about Grant Shapps – I call him Schnapps.

‘I mean, who is he? Why are we talking about him? Does he want to be Prime Minister?’

Lady Meyer, who is due to have dinner with Mrs May this week, insisted that she would ‘without a doubt’ survive the coup attempt with the help of husband Philip, who would support her.

But Lady Meyer appeared to concede that Mr May, seen giving his wife a huge hug after her disastrous conference speech last week, could be in two minds over what she should do.

She said: ‘I think he’s probably torn because he adores his wife but he knows her and he knows that what she will want to do is to continue doing the right thing.’

Lady Meyer, who is due to have dinner with Mrs May this week, insisted that she would ‘without a doubt’ survive the coup attempt with the help of husband Philip, who would support her

Speaking on BBC2’s Newsnight on Friday, Lady Meyer suggested that some of the attacks on Mrs May were down to sexism, saying: ‘It takes a lot of guts to continue during a whole hour [of the conference speech] while you have a terrible cough and all the criticism she’s been having after that. I think it’s completely unfair. Sometimes I wonder, is it because she is a woman?’

She added that Tony Blair and David Cameron had been criticised for ‘being too interested in what people thought of them’ and that now ‘we have a Prime Minister who is absolutely the opposite, she’s introverted, she’s dutiful, she doesn’t need to come out and be loved by everybody and yet we’re criticising her’.