It was 10am on Monday 11 July 2016 and Theresa May was preparing to launch her leadership campaign in Birmingham when Fiona Hill entered the room where she was sitting with her husband, Phil, to tell her that Andrea Leadsom was on the phone. May told everyone to leave before taking the call and then went on stage to deliver her speech. Only at the end did she tell everyone what they had already guessed: that Leadsom had dropped out of the race and she would be prime minister by the afternoon.
This staggering ability not to tell anyone something for a couple of hours is immensely revealing of May’s enormous strength of character and why she is the best person to lead Britain through Brexit. This detail is also indicative of how much I am clutching at straws to come up with anything interesting about her.
From the cuttings files, I can tell you that Theresa’s father was an Anglican priest called Hubert. Here’s what I know about Hubert: next to nothing. We can perhaps speculate, though, that her father’s vocation inspired May to enter politics at the age of 12. One friend who hasn’t seen May for over 45 years remembers May saying: “I want to be the first woman conservative prime minister because I want to make a difference. For the worse.” It’s typical of May’s insight and attention to detail that when Margaret Thatcher became the first woman conservative prime minister that she was able to refocus her ambition on becoming the second.
May’s school holidays were times of quiet happiness because she was an only child. Sometimes the family would watch Morecambe and Wise and sometimes they would have a serious debate. At school, she was very studious and managed to get into Oxford because she was quite clever and worked hard. Benazir Bhutto was at Oxford at the same time as May, but unfortunately I couldn’t find any quotes about her not remembering May as she was assassinated a long time ago. It was also at Oxford that May met Phil and they have been together ever since. Damian Green, who was at Oxford with her and was appointed to her first cabinet, says: “I’d better not say too much about how boring she was in case I get sacked.”
After leaving Oxford, May was determined to devote her life to the Conservative party. “Theresa has always devoted her life to the Conservative party,” says Chris Grayling who served with May on Merton council, a very, very big borough in London. He is now, by coincidence, her transport secretary. Grayling also says that May is actually very funny though he is unable to remember a single funny thing she has ever done.
Phil beamed with delight when May became MP for Maidenhead at the 1997 general election. “It was definitely a turning point in her life,” says close friend Sally Burleigh with typical insight. May was determined to make a mark and worked long hours. Typically, she also shunned the late-night drinking culture that is so prevalent at Westminster, preferring to have a quiet meal at home with Phil. As May said to the Telegraph in 1998: “I prefer having a quiet meal at home with Phil to staying out late drinking.”
Not everyone was impressed with May. “She wasn’t very impressive,” one source told me. But her diligence and ability not to believe in anything so deeply she couldn’t change her mind, if the situation required it, impressed a succession of leaders and she was rewarded with a series of shadow cabinet appointments she appears to have done efficiently with little fuss. “The thing you need to know about Theresa,” said Eric Pickles, “is that she gets on with the job in hand.”
It was at the Tory party conference in 2002 that May really came to the public’s notice when she made a speech calling the Tories “the nasty party” while wearing kitten heels. “Theresa really adores clothes and loves to express herself as a woman,” said a close friend who once went shopping with her. “She reads all the Asos catalogues avidly.”
Not being able to have children is a sadness May does not like talking about except in these 25 interviews I’m rehashing now. “She is a very private person,” said William Hague, “who doesn’t like taking about these things in public except when it’s to her political advantage.”
May’s ambition came into focus when she was appointed home secretary in David Cameron’s coalition government because, although she felt excluded from the Notting Hill set, she chose to rub along with them until such a time as she could become prime minister herself. “She’s not very clubbable,” said the affable Kenneth Clarke. “Though personally I would love to club her.”
Here’s a long list of things she did and the rows she had as home secretary that you could have found out for yourself on Wikipedia.
The 2015 election was disappointing for May as she was hoping Cameron would do badly and she could take over. Luckily, Cameron self-destructed within a year and May took her chance when the public became horrified at the thought of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove or Leadsom becoming prime minister. On achieving the office she had desired for so long, her first act was to sack George Osborne and Gove because she didn’t like them. Phil beamed. May has always placed a high price on loyalty. “Theresa has always been fiercely loyal except when she isn’t,” said someone.
Britain had its first enigmatic prime minister. “She’s not enigmatic,” a friend didn’t say. “She really is as boring, petty and driven as she seems.”
Digested read, digested: May not.
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