UK PM Theresa May faces calls to quit after speech that went wrong

LONDON: UK Prime Minister Theresa May is losing the confidence of her colleagues and should consider stepping down, a former minister suggested, after a key speech aimed at revitalising her leadership descended into chaos.

Conservative lawmaker Ed Vaizey is the first member of Parliament since the speech to publicly air concerns about May continuing as leader, adding that he believed many of his colleagues feel the same. Vaizey was a culture minister under May's predecessor and left when David Cameron resigned.

If more Tories join him on the record in asking her to go, May's position could become untenable.

Speaking anonymously, one tory lawmaker said May should resign now to allow a new leader to be elected because she would lead the party to defeat at the next election.

The Tory expressed hope that colleagues would speak to May to urge her to step down over the weekend. "I think there will be quite a few people who will now be pretty firmly of the view that she should resign," Vaizey told BBC Oxford in an interview on Thursday, when asked whether May should step aside. May is struggling to reassert her authority after she gambled on an early election in June. Instead of boosting May's party's power in Parliament, the vote cost the Tories their majority in the House of Commons.

In an attempt to reboot her leadership, she apologised for the election fiasco in a speech on Wednesday. Yet that address was overshadowed by a succession of mishaps, after a prankster interrupted her to handed her a P45 form, the paperwork people receive when they leave their jobs.