ANNE PERKINS
Theresa May is the stealth prime minister. A year ago, few tipped her for the top. She was too old, too dry, too uncharismatic and far too reluctant to schmooze. Her victory was so unpredicted and unpredictable, her life story should be incorporated into the national curriculum as an example of the value of luck, self-belief and hard work. Throw in a political crisis, the absurd over-reach of rivals and a spooky calm under pressure, and you are close to working out how May won the prize.
It is six months since this long-serving, middleof-the-road, cricket-loving Conservative—once characterised by William Hague as a “middleorder batsman”—launched her leadership campaign one morning and, before it was time to think about lunch, had become prime minister-in-waiting. Six months that have been increasingly punctuated by a low chorus suggesting, in the phrase so often applied to women, that she’s not quite up to it. Yet, even after that excruciaing hand-holding snap with the wild and distrusted new American president, no one seriously thinks she is at risk.