Graham Vanbergen – The authoritarian style of UK’s new PM Theresa May

The BBC’s rather charming piece entitled “Who is Theresa May: A profile” sets out a life reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher, from her early days as a schoolchild to the ascension to the most powerful job in Britain. It’s a piece littered with affection and sentiment, typical of a state broadcaster.

An early advocate of Conservative “modernisation” in the wilderness years that followed, Mrs May quickly joined the shadow cabinet in 1999 under William Hague as shadow education secretary and in 2002 she became the party’s first female chairman under Iain Duncan Smith. She then held a range of senior posts under Michael Howard but was conspicuously not part of the “Notting Hill set” which grabbed control of the party after its third successive defeat in 2005 and laid David Cameron and George Osborne’s path to power.

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