The extraordinary turn of events whereby Britain acquired a new Prime Minister, Theresa May, nine weeks before anyone expected, owes a great deal to the circumstances surrounding the withdrawal of Andrea Leadsom from the race. And that, in turn, is almost entirely because of the furore that followed her observation in an interview with The Times that “genuinely I feel that being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake”. Indeed, she had made a point during the Brexit TV debate of prefacing her remarks with: “As a mother…”