Prankster and coughing fit mar PM Theresa May’s major speech in UK

MANCHESTER: UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s bid to reassert her dwindling authority was marred on Wednesday by a calamitous keynote speech interrupted by repeated coughing fits, a prankster and even letters of her slogan falling off the stage.

May had wanted to use the Conservative Party’s annual conference to bring her divided party together and pitch herself as the only person able to deliver Brexit and keep opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn out of power.

She started by apologising for her botched bet on a snap June election which stripped her party of its majority in parliament, then pitched a revitalised "British Dream" for which she proposed fixing broken markets and uniting the country.

But her flow was interrupted by British comedian Simon Brodkin, who handed her a P45 letter, a document given to employees when they leave their job. The document had been "signed" by the comedian using the name of her ambitious Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

Then May began a coughing fit and was repeatedly forced to take drinks of water, even coughing into her glass, and was proffered a lozenge from her finance minister, Philip Hammond.

While she was speaking, several letters fell off the slogans behind her on the stage.