Theresa May: From North West Durham to No 10

THERE cannot have been much joy in a Tory candidate’s heart during the 1992 General Election campaign as they trudged the streets in Labour’s North-East heartland. Their party, led by John Major, looked limp and fractured, and was being blamed for one of the deepest recessions of the century.

Nick Kinnock, the Labour leader, thought everything was so alright for his party that he held a triumphal rally in Sheffield on the eve of the poll.

When the results came through, Mr Major defied expectations and clung to power – but he never won over the North-East. In Darlington, Alan Milburn unseated the Conservative schools minister, Michael Fallon; in Sedgefield, Tony Blair enlarged his share of the vote, and in Hartlepool, a moustachioed Peter Mandelson was returned for the first time.

In North-West Durham, Hilary Armstrong added a couple of thousand to her majority as the Liberal Democrat vote faded away – candidate Tim Farron, a Newcastle University student who, at 21, was the youngest anywhere in the country, came third. It didn’t harm him personally as he is now the leader of his party.

And it didn’t harm the Conservative candidate, who came second, because she too is now the leader of her party.

In North West Durham in April 1992, Theresa May stood for Parliament for the first time and polled 12,747 votes – just 38 fewer than her party had in 1987.

“She bought a house in Lanchester when she was selected, and she would meet at Tory supporters’ houses and they would have tea and cakes,” recalled Baroness Armstrong yesterday. “She didn’t do any public events or attend hustings.

“I met her for the first time at the count. She was very thin and wore a Thatcher-style bright blue suit with a short skirt, and she was very composed – she knew she wasn’t going to win, so her campaign was to maintain the core vote and she concentrated on Weardale and Lanchester.

“She was doing it to demonstrate she could do it, and to gain exposure to Tory shire northern people, and I am sure that has stood her in good stead.”

Theresa May's 1992 CV from when she stood unsuccessfully in North West Durham

Mrs May’s faxed CV is still in The Northern Echo’s archive, showing that she was 33-years-old, “married – no children”, and had gained a good smattering of O Levels and A Levels from her Oxfordshire state school before going up to Oxford University to study Geography.

It shows she had worked in the City, and had been an active member of the Conservative Party since the 1970s – it is said that, the daughter of a Church of England vicar, she had wanted to become a politician from the age of 12. The CV says she was first elected as a councillor in the London Borough of Merton in 1986.

Outside politics, she said her hobby was cooking (she now owns more than 100 cookbooks) and her interests included cricket – her hero is Geoffrey Boycott, the obdurate Yorkshireman noted for his bloody-mindedness.

Under “other points”, her CV notes: “Husband is an investment manager and is active in the local Conservative Party.” Her husband is, in fact, Philip, who may become this generation’s Denis Thatcher. He and Theresa were introduced at university by Benazir Bhutto, who became prime minister of Pakistan, and they married in 1980.

Her brief brush with North West Durham did stand her in good stead because five years later, despite Tony Blair’s landslide, Mrs May became the MP for Maidenhead. She quickly moved onto the bedraggled party’s front benches, and in 2002, became party chairman. At conference that year, she told the Tory faithful in a jaw-dropping moment: “You know what people call us? The nasty party.”

Despite nearly 20 years on the front benches, that “nasty party” quote is one of two things most people remember about her. The other, of course, is that she has a penchant for elaborate leopardskin print heels.

This must indicate that she has been a competent Home Secretary for the last six years. She is the longest serving in that graveyard role for 60 years and yet has hardly been in the headlines for 60 minutes, despite presiding over a failure to contain immigration and Britain’s attempts to tackle Islamic extremism. Her in-tray has also included such hot topics as police reform, riots, child abuse scandals and the passport fiasco.

Her avoidance of headlines suggests her greatest strength is pouring cold water on a crisis and calmly cleaning away the mess. She is known for her unflappability, for her attention to detail, and for fighting her own corner – Ken Clarke called her a “bloody difficult woman”, which may have been an insult, but only encouraged commentators to approvingly call her Thatcher 2.

Mrs May is also very private. While the rest of the nation over-shares on Twitter and Facebook, when questioned about not having children, Mrs May simply said: “You accept the hand that life deals you.”

She has many attributes that the nation needs right now, particularly the ability to clean away a mess, but a big difficulty: she was in the Remain camp and from tomorrow she will lead a government that must negotiate Brexit.

Perhaps her 1992 North-West Durham CV brings a glimmer of hope. Under the heading “specialised knowledge”, Mrs May typed: “Education, local government and Europe.” If ever Britain needs someone with specialised knowledge of Europe, it is now.