Theresa May was warned not to ‘grimace’ over Donald Trump's groping comments

Theresa May was warned not to “grimace” when
asked about Donald Trump’s groping comments, it
was revealed today.
The Prime Minister was given the instruction by
Number 10 communications director Katie Perrior
ahead of her first interview of the New Year.
There were fears that Sky News host Sophy Ridge
could hit the PM “pull a stunt” by asking a question
about the recently unearthed video of the then-
President elect boasting his celebrity status allowed
him to sexually assault women.
“You can just grab them by the p***y”, Trump said.
A new book about the election campaign, ‘Betting the
House’, by Tim Ross & Tom McTague, reveals the
conversation that took place to prepare the PM for
the moment.
In the car taking
the Prime
Minister from her
Sunday church
service to the Sky
News studios,
Perrior reminded
her of the quote -
and of her
tendency to pull
faces when
surprised.
Mrs May denied
she grimaced,
according to
extracts published in the Mail on Sunday.
But Perrior retorted: “You do. Don’t do it. Keep
completely and utterly still – poker face.
“They want to be able to say, 'this is the face Theresa
May makes when she talks about Donald Trump'".
Sophy Ridge, who conducted the interview, this
morning tweeted her surprise that asking the question
was considered a “stunt”.
She tweeted: “I am genuinely baffled that asking the
Prime Minister about comments by the US President
on sexually assaulting women is seen as a “stunt”.
Elsewhere in the extract, it’s revealed that Mrs May
spent little time in the Tories’ campaign headquarters
in the run up to the election, because it was feared
she might catch something.
CCHQ is described as “basically a pit of germs”, and
aides feared she could be taken out by a virus.
Her absence, according to the book, caused a dip in
morale among staffers.
And when she eventually did turn up in the office to
rally the troops, she gave the same “strong and
stable” stump speech activists had heard dozens of
times on the campaign trail.
During the speech, activists could be seen checking
Twitter on their phones.
One staffer was reported to complain: “I couldn’t
believe it.
“This was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
talking in the middle of an Election to her own
campaign staff and she couldn’t even hold the room

Tweet