Theresa May has revealed she shed a “little tear” after being told the result of the general election exit poll which was a “complete shock”.
In an interview with BBC Radio 5′s Live’s Emma Barnett, the prime minister said she “felt devastated” and “didn’t see it coming”.
“I don’t regret calling it,” May said of the snap election which lost the Conservative Party its overall majority.
The prime minister did not watch exit poll announced on TV at 10pm on June 8, but was told the result by her husband Philip. “I have a little bit of superstition about things like that,” she revealed.
“It took a few minutes for it to sort of sink in, what that was telling me,” she said. “My husband gave me a hug.”
Today marks one year since May took over from David Cameron as prime minister.
“I knew it wasn’t a perfect campaign,” she said in the radio interview. “Looking back on the campaign now, what I regret is we didn’t get across more the message, the vision, I set out the on the day I became prime minister.”
Asked how long she intended to remain in Downing Street, May refused to name a date.
“I am getting down to work and getting on with delivering that Brexit deal,” she said.
May said she has wanted to be an MP since she was 12 and was driven by “a sense of duty and sense of public service”.
The prime minister, who vilified Jeremy Corbyn during the campaign, praised the Labour leader - in a way - for how he dealt with the terror attack in Finsbury Park. “I saw a Jeremy Corbyn who was a good constituency MP,” she said.