Rosa Prince - Theresa May: The Enigmatic Prime Minister

T heresa May was sitting in an ante-room preparing to go on stage when one of her closest aides, Fiona Hill, walked into the room with a mobile phone. The caller was bearing the most important news May would ever receive. It was 10 a.m. on Monday 11 July 2016, and the Home Secretary was getting ready to launch her campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party. The reward for victory would be the greatest prize in British politics: to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. With May in the side room at the IET Birmingham Austin Court, a fashionable wedding venue and conference centre in the heart of the Second City, were her husband, Philip May, and Liam Fox, a long-time friend and former Defence Secretary, who was due to introduce her on stage. All three were immediately struck by the portentous look on Hills face as much as by the words she spoke, as she informed May that Andrea Leadsom, her last remaining rival in the leadership race, wanted to speak to her urgently.

May glanced at the two men and quietly asked them to leave the room. Hill handed the phone over to the woman who had become her friend and mentor as well as her boss, and withdrew too, leaving May alone. In the long minutes that followed, the three waiting outside did not speculate out loud about what was taking place on the other side of the door, but it was impossible for their thoughts not to race ahead of them. Four days earlier, it had emerged that the contest for the Conservative leadership would come down to a straight fight between Leadsom and May. The race had been triggered on 24 June by the sudden resignation of David Cameron following the shock outcome of the referendum on Britains membership of the European Union, in which the Prime Ministers Remain side had narrowly been beaten. The intervening sixteen days had seen a brutal bloodletting, with all the main contenders and expected favourites for the crown falling one by one until only Leadsom and May were left standing. The pair were now about to embark on a nine-week campaign before a ballot would take place of Conservative Party members. The result of the contest would be announced on 9 September.

Three days before May travelled to Birmingham to officially launch her campaign, Leadsom had given an interview in which she appeared to suggest that she was more in touch with voters concerns than her rival because, unlike May, she was a mother. While Leadsom insisted her words had been taken out of context, she found herself facing a bruising barrage of criticism, with commentators and fellow politicians questioning her judgement. Shortly after the article appeared, she was forced to issue a humiliating apology to her rival. It had been the worst possible start to Leadsoms campaign and a boon to May, who maintained her dignity by refusing to respond. Now Leadsom was making a highly unexpected private telephone call to her fellow candidate and those waiting outside the door could only wonder what it meant.

After a few minutes, May opened the door and invited Philip and Liam Fox back into the room. She said nothing about the phone conversation, and they did not ask what had transpired. May seemed perfectly calm and collected; her usual self, in fact. As always, she was immaculately turned out, in a navy zip-up jacket and matching skirt. Her shoes, inevitably the focus of attention, were red velvet with gold tips, and there were pearls at her ears and around her neck. If her companions had been wondering about the significance of Leadsoms phone call, they were no clearer now that they were back in the room with May. Her face gave away nothing. The three spent the next twenty minutes chatting quietly and making a few last-minute revisions to Mays speech. At around 10.30 a.m., Fiona Hill returned to invite the group to enter the darkly intimate main hall of the IET so that the event could begin. Philip took a seat in the front row as Fox began his short introduction.

Then, just before 11 a.m., it was Mays turn to speak. She formally launched her campaign with words which would later become famous, saying of the result of the referendum: Brexit means Brexit. From there, May moved on to describe her vision for the future of the country, appearing to distance herself from the policies of her predecessor, David Cameron, by detailing a different kind of Conservatism. If elected, there would be a new industrial strategy, a substantial house-building programme, and an end to corporate excess. There is a gaping chasm between wealthy London and the rest of the country, she warned. The twenty-minute speech was followed by a press conference in which May was pressed in more detail about her plans. Asked by the BBCs deputy political editor, John Pienaar, for her response to Leadsoms apology, she said: I accept the apology, and, Im here today, actually, ensuring that what Im doing is talk about what I would do as Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party. Throughout her speech and the short press conference, May never once slipped up over her tenses or gave any intimation that her status had changed from being a candidate for the leadership to a Prime Minister-in-waiting.

Press conference over, May prepared to be interviewed on a one-on-one basis by a succession of journalists. First in line was Jonathan Walker of the Birmingham Mail. But before she could get to him, the phones of the other journalists still gathered in the hall began to vibrate with urgent demands from their news desks to question May about a series of messages that had just been sent by Laura Kuenssberg, the BBCs political editor, via Twitter. The first, issued at 11.27 a.m., read @andrealeadsom making a statement at 12. It was followed six minutes later by another: Westminster rumour mill going into overdrive over Leadsom statement and what it might be. Finally, at 11.35 a.m., Kuenssberg sent the rumour mill off the scale: Source tells me Leadsom to pull out at 12 not confirmed. Mays aides seemed as shocked by the news as the journalists were. May was hastily bundled back to the green room.

Once she was alone again with her husband and Liam Fox, May confirmed the suspicion they had held for the past ninety minutes. Leadsom had informed May by telephone that she would be pulling out of the leadership contest, and graciously wished her good luck for her future life as Prime Minister. She had asked, however, that May keep the news of her withdrawal confidential until she had the chance to make it public herself. May had taken her literally, not breathing a word to her close friend Fox, or even her beloved husband Philip, the man who is closer to her by far than anyone in the world. For an hour and a half, May had kept her composure, not betraying by a single word or facial expression the staggering reality that, with breathtaking speed, she was about to become Britains second female Prime Minister. It was an honour she had long dreamed of; she could never have imagined the circumstances in which it would come about. Yet, at the very moment of her triumph, her self-control was such that she had not allowed herself even a moments celebration.

It takes extraordinary strength of character to know for ninety long minutes that you are about to become the Prime Minister of the country you love, an honour you have craved from your teenage years, and not tell a soul. But, for Theresa May, there was no question that, having given her word to Andrea Leadsom, she would keep it. To understand how she could have displayed such composure at the very moment of her greatest success, it is necessary to go back, to an upbringing and family tradition that instilled in her a rigid sense of honour and the steely value of self-control.