Wednesday 13 July 2016

Theresa May, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom - who is she?


Like a good many people in Australia I hadn’t really noticed this politician until the fall-out from the U.K. Brexit vote began.

Now as Prime Minister-elect until her swearing in sometime later today, Theresa May is being portrayed in sections of the mainstream media as another Iron Lady.

May is an Oxford graduate with a degree in geography, who worked for the Bank of England from 1985 until 1997 before holding a post at the Association for Payment Clearing Services and, also served as a councillor for the London Borough of Merton's Durnsford Ward from 1986 to 1994 [http://www.tmay.co.uk/biography].

She is alleged to identify as a One Nation Conservative.

Theresa May was elected MP for Maidenhead in May 1997, after which she held several shadow positions, including:

Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Employment 1999 to 2001
Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions 2001 to 2002
Shadow Secretary of State for the Family 2004 to 2005
Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport 2005
Shadow Leader of the House of Commons 2005 to 2009

May was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Women and Equalities 2010 to 2012 and was appointed Home Secretary in May 2010

She was re-elected on 7 May 2015 with 65.8% of the vote in her Maidenhead electorate.

SOME INSTANCES OF THERESA MAY’S VOTING RECORD

2010 voted to raise VAT (consumption tax).
12 October 2011 voted against creating more jobs for young people funded by bank bonuses.
2012 voted for a scheme where employees could sell their rights (among them the right to redundancy pay and the right to not be unfairly dismissed from their jobs) for shares in the company for which they worked.
June 2012 as Home Secretary found guilty of contempt of court.
18 December 2012 announced restrictive changes to the immigration rules applying to non-EEA nationals seeking to bring family members to the U.K.
2013 voted against acting on soaring energy bills and begins to campaign against the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights.
September 2013 voted against calling on the government to get more people into work, against introducing a compulsory jobs guarantee, against standing up for families in the private rental sector, against curbing payday lenders, and against banking reforms.
13 May 2014 voted not to ban estate agents from charging their fees to tenants instead of the person renting out the property.
April 2016 voted against implementing a series of proposals intended to reduce tax avoidance and evasion and against giving the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority duties to combat abusive tax avoidance arrangements.

More details of May’s voting record can be found at: http://myparliament.info/Member/8/Voting.

* Photographs found at Google Images

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Who is she indeed!

One of her very first acts was to abolish the Department for Energy and Climate Change, OMG sacrilege!

Naturally the vested interests have come out screaming - “plain stupid”, “deeply worrying” and “terrible” are just a few of the panic merchants raves.

It would appear Ms May has at least one thing in common with ex-PM Abbott, a belief that climate change is a fraud. Looking forward to the next step, a full investigation into the charlatans pushing the fraud, that would fix a lot of problems (such as electricity supply in South Australia, .....).

At last citizens are starting to wake up, evidence the dropping Green vote under a very credible new leader last election.