Our new Prime Minister will certainly have to be tough and headstrong given the huge challenges that Britain faces in the coming months and years. Having remained stoically quiet during the Andrea Leadsom rows about motherhood, resultingin her opponent bowing out, these are two characteristics that her friends and allies say Theresa May has by the bucketload. Nevertheless, she's not all gruff and no fluff, as the daughter of a vicar she appears tohave a concern for social justice and equality. This is perhaps surprising for someone who isseen as right-wing after her anti-immigration speech at last year's Tory Conference and her forceful opposition to both civil liberties in the digital arenaand the European Court of Human Rights, which is separate from the EU.
Allegedly liberal leanings.
However her strong sense of morality is not only manifest in many of the policies that she has pushed for, apparentlyindependently of her seniors in the Cameron Cabinet, but also in the revelation that she gives bountifully to charity. We are aware of thanks to the release of her tax records, which indicate her gift aid was around £3500, which only indicates the tax-rebate part of her donation. In terms of liberal policies, she has fought against Stop-And-Search, which unfairly targeted ethnic minority individuals and has stood up formore tangible civil liberties by scrapping proposed ID cards and a database which critics argued would unfairly treat everyone as a suspect.
Strong moral duty.
This strong sense of moral duty may come from her upbringing as the daughter of a vicar and her strong Christian faith, evidenced by the fact that she attends Church once a week. Robert Halfon, a champion of blue collar 'working class' conservatism sees great hope in her leadership for ordinary people describing her as "more NHS than BHS".
This perception of a leader determined to seek a greater level of equality is aided by her most recent speech where she has pledged to deal with the "housing deficit" by building more homes and to "crack down on tax avoidance and tax evasion".
Liberal conservative - oxymoron?
However, only time will tell if these liberal stances come to fruition, havingalready been criticised by corners of the media for hervoting record,whichcontradicts these stances.
As Holly Baxter of the Independent points out, all of the pledges mentioned in her speech have an opposite example in her voting record, including voting "against giving the Financial Conduct Authority duties to combat abusive tax avoidance arrangements" just weeks ago. One thing is for sure, she will either be a roaring success, a champion of the working class and a grave threat to Labour or a disappointing incarnation of continuity Cameron and crony capitalism. As a Labour supporter, I cannot decide which one is worse.
