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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
6 2 June 2017
INTERNATIONAL
UK Prime Minister
not up to much
by Michael Smith
May be not
‘B-A-Y C-I-T-Y’
June 2017 6 3
T
HERESA MAY was born in 1956, in
Eastbourne, England, only child of
Hubert Brasier and Zaidee Mary May.
May’s grandmother Violet chose the
name Zaidee, because she was
highly religious and Zaidee is the name of
Abraham’s wife in the Old Testament. Her
father was a Church of England clergyman who
served as Vicar of Wheatley, not to be confused
with ‘Vicar of Dibley’, a British sitcom from the
1990s in which Dawn French came to serve in
an eccentrically conservative church
community.
May’s grandfather served in India and had
been a regimental sergeant major but two of
her grandmothers were in domestic service
and her great-grandfather was a butler in ser-
vice genealogy overwhelmingly middle-class
Theresa plays down.
She attended a state primary, an independ
-
ent convent school. According to ambivalent
sources from the time she was a closet hair-
puller, but excelled at geography, knowing all
the tribes and capitals of the Commonwealth.
She learned from ‘Ladybird’ books about the
special history of England and its place in the
hearts of people around the world, though she
has recently conceded she doesn’t read much
history. Twice a week she was allowed to watch
‘Blue Peter’, where Val Singleton was a particu-
lar favourite though she was always in bed by
eight as the Reverend liked to watch ‘Z Cars’
and there was a danger of bad language.
It was idyllic. Doves cooing in the trees over
the duck-filled village pond at Wheatley and
Morris dancing on the green. But halcyon days
could not last forever. She moved up to Holton
Park Girls’ Grammar School, a state school in
the village of Wheatley, which became the omi
-
nous-sounding Wheatley Park Comprehensive
School during her time there.
Standards dropped.
It was idyllic until
her Grammar School
became the ominous-
sounding Wheatley Park
Comprehensive School.
Standards dropped
6 4 June 2017
M
AY’S RELATIVE clsslessness is significn
elecorl booser. According o pollsers YouGov
“Clss” used o be cenrl o undersnding
Briish poliics. The Conservives, o ll inens nd
purposes, were he pry of he middle clss nd
Lbour h of he workers. The dividing lines were so
noble h you could predic, wih resonble
degree of ccurcy, how someone would voe jus by
knowing heir socil grde. For exmple he
elecion he Conservives led Lbour mong ABC
(middle clss) voers by round poins, whils
Lbour ws leding mong CDE (working clss) voers
by round percenge poins. Bu ody, clss would
ell you lile more bou person’s voing inenion
hn looking heir horoscope or reding heir plms.
As he cmpign sred, he Conservives held
% led mongs middle clss voers nd % led
mongs working clss ones.
“In elecorl erms, ge is he new clss”, ccording o
YouGov: “In fc, for every yers older voer is,
heir chnce of voing Tory increses by round % nd
he chnce of hem voing Lbour decreses by %.
Age is lso big driver of urnou, wih older people
being fr more likely o voe hn young people”.
Talk in the common room was reportedly turning to
Communism and wife-swapping.
May was a shy girl but no fool. She mustered all her
girlish indignation and resolved she would become
prime minister and restore the grammar school regime
and the standards that went with it.
This was at a time when immigration was taking hold
all over Britain. May was naturally aware of the threat to
the English way of life.
The young Theresa Brasier, as she was then, threw
herself into village life, taking part in a pantomime that
was produced by her father and working in the bakery
on Saturdays to earn pocket money to spend on bull-
seyes and – always the fashionable one - bellbottoms.
She kept a Bay City Rollers outfit under her mattress and
wore it once at a barn dance. In later years she has worn
it to meetings with Nicola Sturgeon.
Friends recall a tall, clothes-conscious young woman
on lime-green platform shoes who from an early age
spoke of her ambition to be the first woman prime min-
ister. She was an obsessive fan of boring and abrasive
batsman-cricketer Geoffrey Boycott and at one time her
father reluctantly had to have austere words with her
about this.
Principally on the back of her excellence at Geography
she advanced to Oxford University where, in 1976, in her
third year, she was introduced to Phillip May at a Con-
servative Association disco by Benazir Bhutto, later
Pakistani prime minister. Phil-
lip was president of the Oxford
Union, a hotbed of people with
strong views, some of them left
wing. Theresa and Phillip were
learning fast that this had to be
subverted. Margaret Thatcher
was on the rise and they were
both really into Geoffrey Howe.
May had her first Pimms, by
1979 Phillip and Theresa were
holding hands, visiting local
reservoirs to check the water
levels on Sunday afternoons,
and in 1980 they wed.
The next year tragedy struck:
the Rev Hubert Brasier was driving his Morris Marina to
a nearby church where he was due to conduct the even
-
ing Sunday service when he was in collision with a Range
Rover on the A40 outside Oxford. The vicar, 64, died of
head and spine injuries a few hours later.
A report of the inquest at the time told how he had
been trying to cross the busy A40. He “edged forward
from the central reservation into the path of a Range
Rover”. The Range Rover, with a driver and two passen-
gers, tried to brake in time but collided at high speed
with the front wing of the Marina. Mr Brasier was rushed
to hospital but it was too late.
Margaret Thatcher was on the
rise and they were both really
into Geoffrey Howe. May had her
first Pimms, by 1979 Phillip and
Theresa were holding hands,
visiting local reservoirs to check
the water levels, and in 1980
they wed
INTERNATIONAL
May has cultivated Wallace and Wendolene.
Younger Britons will be unforgiving
June 2017 6 5
May went to work in the City, initially starting work at
the Bank of England and later rising to become head of
the European Affairs Unit of the Association for Payment
Clearing Services. She used to tell interesting stories
about clearing.
Next she had failed attempts at election to the House
of Commons in 1992 and 1994 but was successfully
chosen as MP for Maidenhead in the 1997 general elec-
tion. From 1999 to 2010, May held a number of roles in
the Shadow Cabinets of William Hague, Iain Duncan
Smith and Michael Howard. Even though a woman, she
was at least as fascinating a character as they were, so
they made her Chairman of the Conservative Party from
2002 to 2003.
In the early days at Westminster she became known
for her exuberant choice of footwear - her kitten heels
became famous in political circles in the noughties,
while she named a lifetime subscription to Vogue as the
luxury item she would take to a desert island.
It is her toughness which has become her political
hallmark. She likes to talk of herself as a bloody difficult
woman. “I am a bloody difficult woman”, she repeats.
Her patent furrowed eyebrows remind most English
people of their crossest relation and cabinet
ministers always accept what she says
when she does them. Another
favourite is her rictus smile,
which she deploys in difficult
situations as a substitute for
wisdom. She has coped with
being one of only a small
number of women in the
upper echelons of the Con
-
servative Party for 17 years
and has been prepared to tell
her party some hard truths -
famously informing activists at
the 2002 conference that “you
know what some people call us - the
nasty party”.
Reappointed as Home Secretary after the Con-
servative victory in the 2015 general election, she went
on to become the longest-serving Home Secretary since
James Chuter Ede over 60 years previously.
During her tenure she pursued reform of the Police
Federation, She implemented a harder line on drugs
policy including the banning of khat, oversaw the intro-
duction of elected Police and Crime Commissioners, the
deportation of Abu Qatada, the creation of the National
Crime Agency and additional restrictions on immigra-
tion. She came from a background where Johnny
foreigner was always suspect and it was as likely she
would be outward looking as that she would marry a man
called Mustapha or live in a towerblock squat in
Hounslow.
As someone with strong views on, though no actual
awareness of or experience of, immigration, in 2010 she
promised to bring the level of net migration down to less
than 100,000. It was a number and it sounded tough.
She also rejected the European Union’s proposal of
compulsory refugee quotas, a double whammy. The Con-
servative party, and May in particular, had long promised
to bring net migration – the number of migrants coming
into Britain minus those leaving – down to “tens of thou-
sands” a year. But the number rose to 333,000 in 2015.
As a distraction, she once claimed an illegal immigrant
avoided deportation because of his pet cat. “We all know
the stories about the Human Rights Act ... about the ille-
gal immigrant who cannot be deported because – and I
am not making this up – he had a pet cat”, she told a
stunned Tory Party Conference in 2011. Judges and
human rights campaigners promptly accused her of get-
ting her facts wrong and even her colleague, then justice
secretary Ken Clarke, said: “The cat surprised me. I
cannot believe anyone was refused deportation just
because they owned a cat”.
The cat played well so in 2013 May went for a pilot bill-
board campaign that told illegal immigrants to “Go home
or face arrest”.
She also voted against reducing the age of consent for
gay people in 1998 and against the repeal of Section 28
– laws banning the “promotion” of homosexuality in
schools – in 2000. But allies say she’s been on a journey
and that her views have changed over the past decade
and a half. She voted in favour of same-sex marriage in
2013, saying: “Marriage should be for everyone”. It
wasn’t clear if she meant it should be
compulsory.
Before the Brexit referendum May
explained privately (to the folks at
Goldman Sachs): ”I think the eco-
nomic arguments are clear. I
think being part of a 500-million
trading bloc is significant for us.
I think that one of the issues is
that a lot of people will invest
here in the UK because it is the
UK in Europe. If we were not in
Europe, I think there would be
firms and companies who would be
looking to say, do they need to
develop a mainland Europe presence
rather than a UK presence? So I think there
are definite benefits for us in economic terms”.
May also said Britain was more secure as part of the
EU due to the European arrest warrant and Europe wide
information sharing among other factors. Luckily she
said this to Goldman, and only half meant it. It was the
ideal position for a Prime Minister in the making.
And so when Britain voted for Brexit in 2016 condemn-
ing David Cameron to posterity’s viciousness, she
ascended; in the process whipping an impossibly
smarmy Michael Gove, a vile Andrea Leadsom who deni-
grated May’s childlessness, Stephen Crabb and Liam Fox
(a crab and a fox). Boris Johnson sat it all out, a hamster
who had been outed as a rat.
May’s public reticence during the Brexit referendum
campaign had resulted in tensions with David Cameron
and his pro-EU team. Cameron reportedly asked her on
thirteen separate occasions to campaign for the
“remain” side, and she refused. She and George
Osborne, a proper Tory boy, were inflammatory. Mrs
May’s aides were almost certainly responsible for letting
it be known that she had given him a severe dressing
down, telling him he needed to show more humility if he
ever wanted to be prime minister.
The cat played well
so in 2013 May
went for a pilot
billboard campaign
that told illegal
immigrants to
“Go home or face
arrest”
Middle class?
6 6 June 2017
May failed to reappoint him after a number of earlier
clashes, mainly over immigration, when the then-chan
-
cellor had argued - bad idea - for a more relaxed approach
to economic migration.
When Vogue asked her what she stands for she
replied, “I suppose if I could sum it up: in opportunity,
freedom, security”. Unexciting then.
ITV’s Political Editor Robert Peston commented: “Her
rhetoric is more left-wing than Cameron’s was but her
cabinet is more right-wing than his was”.
She suffers from Type 1 diabetes, requires two insulin
injections daily, and so is not entirely in favour of priva
-
tising the National Health Service. Certainly she has
spoken about “burning injustices”, about what it meant
to be born poor or black, and she put herself “at the ser
-
vice of ordinary, working people” but really she’s really
allowed herself to be defined primarily as a force with
Johnny foreigner (to whom she is hostile).
Describing her as a liberal Conservative, the Financial
Times characterises May as a “non-ideological politician
with a ruthless streak who gets on with the job”, in doing
so comparing her to German Chancellor Angela
Merkel. nevertheless, in The Independent,
Rebecca Glover of the Policy Innovation
Research Unit has contrasted May to
Boris Johnson, claiming that she
was “staunchly more conservative,
more anti-immigration, and more
isolationist” than he is”. It is
widely accepted she is less foolish
than Johnson and indeed than the
majority of the English people.
Johnson will succeed her.
Although May had supported
remaining in the EU, she appointed sev-
eral of the vainest advocates of Brexit to key
Cabinet to negotiate the terms of it, including Boris
Johnson as Foreign Secretary, David Davis as Brexit Sec-
retary, and Liam Fox as International Trade Secretary.
May said she called the snap 2017 election to secure
a majority for her Brexit negotiating strategies. The hard
Conservative manifesto committed to leaving the single
market and customs union but to seek a “deep and spe
-
cial partnership” through a comprehensive free trade
and customs agreement. It proposed seeking to remain
part of some EU programmes where it would “be reason-
able that we make a contribution” and stay as a signatory
of the European Convention on Human Rights over the
next parliament and maintain the Human Rights Act
during Brexit negotiations, though under pressure from
the Birmingham and London Bridge atrocities she has
clearly signalled willingness to “tear up” human rights
protections where she sees fit. In general Parliament
would be able to amend or repeal EU legislation once
converted into UK law, and vote on the final
agreement.
May has promised a “mainstream government that
would deliver for mainstream Britain”. The manifesto
proposes to balance the budget by 2025, raise spending
on the NHS by £8bn per year and on schools by £4bn per
year by 2022, remove the ban on new grammar schools
(unfinished business), means-test the winter fuel allow
-
ance, replace the State pension “triple lock” with a
“double lock” and require executive pay to be approved
by a vote of shareholders. It dropped the 2015 pledge
not to raise income tax or national insurance contribu-
tions, but maintained a commitment to freeze VAT. New
sovereign wealth funds for infrastructure, rules
to prevent foreign takeovers of “critical
national infrastructure” and institutes
of technology were also proposed.
The manifesto was noted for its
relaxedness on intervention in
industry, lack of tax cuts and
increased spending commit
-
ments on public services.
Social care became a major
election issue after the Conserva-
tive Party’s manifesto included new
proposals to make older people pay
for their care, policies which May igno-
miniously changed after criticism from her
grey base. May particularly appeals to older people
and is said to have always been old at heart.
At the time of writing, the Tory gambit of playing to her
strengths by making her start every
sentence on the campaign with “I am
stable and strong” appeared high risk
as it clashed with the whole thrust of
Brexit which will weaken Britain,
unstably.
In the election she was lucky her
principal opponent was the wit-and-
hap-less eccentric, Jeremy Corbyn.
Vogue described May as “studiously
uneccentric”. but there is nothing at all
beyond the studiedness. She is dis-
tilled essence of English middle-class.
Russell Brand struck a sour note liken
-
ing her to a vindictive librarian drawn
by Quentin Blake [for a Roald Dahl
novel]. Putting May’s personality on
the line for the electorate seemed to
have backfired as, sadly, she has none.
Small details of Theresa May’s biog-
raphy have been exaggerated or made
up, to reflect her unreal, nostalgia-fil-
tered worldview.
INTERNATIONAL
The manifesto proposes to balance the budget
by 2025; raise spending on the NHS by £8bn per
year and on schools by £4bn per year by 2022;
intervention in industry; no tax cuts; and increased
spending commitments on public services
Middle class?
Young librarian
