Theresa May

Some Lesser Known Facts About Theresa May

• Theresa May is the second female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the first world leader to serve with Type 1 diabetes.

• She is considered one of the longest-serving home secretaries of the United Kingdom.

• Theresa May is the first woman to hold two of the most significant positions in the government, and the second is Liz Truss.

• Her father died in a car crash. According to May, her father taught her to “take people as you find them” and “treat everyone equally.” A few months later to her father’s demise, her mother also died who was a supporter of the Conservative Party.

• At 25, Thersa May had become an orphan. In an interview, she talked about her parents and said,
  

  They never saw me even become a Member of Parliament. They died when I was quite young, so it’s really nice to think, you know, they would have been proud.”

• While growing up in Oxfordshire, she attended a state primary, an independent convent school, and then a grammar school in the village of Wheatley.

  

• May says she was heavily crying on the first day of school as he didn’t want to leave her mother.
  

  I remember arriving at school screaming my head off because I didn’t want to leave my mother. So I had to be carried into the class in the arms of the headmistress, who announced to the rest of the class, ‘Look what a silly little girl we have got here.’ ”

• In childhood, she would make scones with her mother and listen to the cricket on the radio with her father.

• While studying in college, she would work at a bakery on Saturdays to earn pocket money. She would also take part in a pantomime (a theatrical entertainment, mainly for children) that was produced by her father.

• According to her university mates, she always had political ambition while pursuing her degree and wanted to become the first woman prime minister.

• Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto introduced her to her future husband, Philip May, while they were studying at Oxford.

  

• After graduating from Oxford, she took a job with the Bank of England, where she worked from 1977 to 1983.

• In 1985, she joined the Association for Payment Clearing Services as an adviser on international affairs, where she served in various capacities including Head of the European Affairs Unit and Senior Adviser on International Affairs until 1997.

• Her first stint in parliament was as Shadow Spokesman for Schools, Disabled People, and Women after she became a member of William Hague’s front-bench Opposition team.

  

• After she was appointed Home Secretary in 2010, she brought significant changes to the previous Labour government’s measures on data collection and surveillance in England and Wales. She replaced the Labour government’s National Identity Card and database scheme with the Identity Documents Act 2010.

• During her tenure as Home Secretary, the country witnessed reductions in crime, reform of the police, and the introduction of the landmark Modern Slavery Act.

• She also reformed the regulations on the retention of DNA samples for suspects and controls on using CCTV cameras.

• Cumbria shootings, in which a gunman taxi driver killed 12 people in June 2010, took place during May’s stint as Home Secretary.

  

• In June 2010, she banned the entry of Indian Muslim preacher Zakir Naik to the United Kingdom.

• She opposed Brexit (British withdrawal from the European Union) alongside David Cameron.

• While addressing the world’s media outside 10 Downing Street after becoming the second female British Prime Minister, she said she was “honoured and humbled” to hold the position.

• At 59, Theresa May became the oldest leader to enter Downing Street since James Callaghan in 1976. She also became the first prime minister since Ted Heath not to have children.

• Various media sources reported her first cabinet reshuffle one of the most sweeping reshuffles in decades.

• She appointed Boris Johnson as foreign secretary; however, he quit the cabinet two years later in protest at her Brexit plans.

  

• She attended her first Prime Minister’s Questions on 20 July 2016.

• She took her first international trip as a Prime Minister to Berlin on 20-21 July 2016, where she met German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

• When Donald Trump became the US President in 2017, she was the first foreign leader to meet him since he became the President.

  

• During her visit to the United States on 26-27 January 2017, she spoke at the annual congressional Republican retreat, becoming the first serving foreign leader outside the United States to do so.

• At the beginning of 2017, it was reported in the media that May enjoyed the longest honeymoon period as the sitting Conservative prime minister since the end of the Second World War.

• On 6 December 2017, Islamic State terrorist Naa’imur Zakariyah Rahman tried to assassinate May at Downing Street and was charged with terrorism offenses in the alleged plot.

  

• In her first speech as Prime Minister, she said her government would tackle what she called “burning injustices” and established the UK’s first-ever Race Disparity Audit to uncover racial disparities in public services.

• During her second term as the British Prime Minister, she was widely praised after she ordered a full public inquiry into the contaminated blood scandal. It went on to become the biggest public inquiry ever held in the UK.

• In October 2018, Theresa May arrived on stage at the Conservative Party conference to her favourite Abba’s Dancing Queen track.

• On 4 December 2018, the May Government became the first government to be found in contempt of Parliament in history.

• In 2019, she committed that the UK would achieve ‘net zero’ climate emissions by 2050, making Britain the first major economy to do so.

• In January 2019, the May Government’s Brexit deal was defeated in the House of Commons by a margin of 230 votes, making it the largest majority against a United Kingdom government in history.

• A December 2019 poll reported that the social care worsened under May’s premiership.

• She is fond of footwear and has a huge collection of shoes.  She is also known for her red leather jackets and leopard-print shoes.

  

• She is known for her campaign to encourage women to join Parliament. She formed a network called Women2Win in 2005 that helped the Conservative Party increase the number of female MPs from 13 in 1997 to 68 in 2016.

  

• Theresa May idolises Winston Churchill, and she called him one of the great prime ministers of the 20th century on many occasions.

• She justified the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and said that no one was above the law.

• Although she lobbied for improvements to maternity leave and other women’s welfare schemes, she was criticised for making financial cuts that impacted poor and vulnerable women.

• Although she voted against lowering the age of consent for homosexual acts in 1998, she voted in favour of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, legalising same-sex marriage in England and Wales.

• During her tenure as the British Prime Minister, the UK’s national debt fell, there was more employment than ever before, and taxes were cut for 32 million people.

• She loves cooking. she says she owns more than 150 recipe books.

  

• She was mocked on social media after she revealed in an interview the naughtiest thing she had done as a child was to “run through fields of wheat.”

• She enjoys alcoholic beverages on various occasions.