Birth
Theresa May was born on 1 October 1956 in Eastbourne. Her father was a Church of England clergyman and chaplain of Eastbourne General Hospital.
Education
Theresa May studied geography at St Hugh’s College, and graduated with a second class BA degree in 1977.
Personal Life
The daughter of an Anglican priest, she married in 1980 and has no children. She does not speak about her private life.
Individual Characteristics
She is considered to be “extremely stubborn”, “strong” and “inflexible”. She is proud of this description of herself. One of May’s characteristics is her ability to negotiate and pay attention to details in bargaining. One of the criticisms attributed to her in recent years is that she treated the position of home secretary as her personal property, paid little attention to public opinion, and made friends with her deputies. These created problems for secretaries that were constantly in direct contact with the people.
Civic Activities
Theresa May is a supporter of gay marriage laws in the UK. She is a proponent of feminism and one of the founders of the Women2Win campaign. The campaign is trying to persuade more women from the Conservative Party to run for parliament.
Political Positions
Theresa May was first elected to the UK Parliament in 1997. She has served in the shadow cabinet of William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Howard and David Cameron in various positions, including Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Shadow Leader of the House of Commons. She worked for the Bank of England from 1977 to 1983. After an unsuccessful attempt to win the 1992 and 1994 House of Commons elections, she was elected as Conservative MP for Maidenhead in the 1997 election. Theresa May became a member of William Hague’s front-bench opposition team when she entered parliament. She first joined the shadow cabinet in 1997 and served as the Shadow Education and Employment Secretary in 1999. In the 2001 election, Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith, kept her in the shadow cabinet. In July 2002, she was elected the second female leader of the Conservative Party. Speaking at a party conference, she called for fundamental changes within the party. In 2003, she was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Transport and the Environment.
In June 2004, Theresa May became the Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. In December 2005, David Cameron appointed her Shadow Leader of the House of Commons after his accession to leadership. In January 2009, May was made Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. In May 2010, Theresa May was re-elected as a Member of Parliament for Maidenhead, this time winning 60% of the votes. On 12 May 2010, she was appointed Home Secretary and Minister for Women and Equality by Prime Minister David Cameron. In July 2010, Theresa May submitted proposals to the House of Commons for structural reform of the Security and Counter-Terrorism Act, and on 9 December 2010, following violent protests by students in London to the rising higher education costs, Theresa May called on police to control the protests. On 11 June 2012, Theresa May announced new restrictions in Parliament against family immigration to the UK. May held the office of Minister for Women and Equalities in parallel to her office of Home Secretary from 2010 to September 2012, when this role was taken over by Maria Miller. Finally, in July 2016, Theresa May became the new Prime Minister of the UK, succeeding David Cameron. Theresa May was replaced by the next prime minister, Boris Johnson, on Tuesday, 22 August 2009.
