Nuggets on May
Some trivia about Theresa May
— At 59, she is the oldest new prime minister since Jim Callaghan, 64, in 1976.
— She has the shortest surname of any prime minister since Andrew Bonar Law, who held the post for 211 days in 1923.
— She is the first childless PM since Edward Heath
— She is one of three recent prime ministers whose fathers were preachers: Gordon Brown is the son of a Church of Scotland minister and Lady Thatcher’s father was a Methodist preacher as well as shopkeeper. In spite of her father being a Church of England vicar, Theresa May at one point attended a convent school
— Like Lady Thatcher, May suffered a by-election failure before securing a safe Conservative seat. While Thatcher failed to secure the Tory candidacy, however, Theresa fought the Barking by-election of 1994, but saw the Conservative share of the vote plunge to 10.4% from 33.9% in 1992.
International operations
It was revealed that 849 overseas residents were given cataract operations on the NHS last year. What do health tourists cost the taxpayer, according to the government?
EEA visitors who fall ill here: £261m
Visitors from outside EEA who fall ill in Britain: £1.08bn
Expats who return for treatment: £94m
Irregular migrants who fall ill in Britain: £330m
People who travel to Britain specifically for NHS treatment: £60–80m
Labour classes
Who will vote in Labour’s leadership election? A leaked document in January, when the party had 388,000 members, suggested that some of them fitted the following socioeconomic classifications devised by credit agency Experian:
| Labour members | |
| City Prosperity (high status, substantial salaries) | 11% |
| Family Basics (raising children on limited budgets) | 4% |
| British population | |
| City Prosperity (high status, substantial salaries) | 4% |
| Family Basics (raising children on limited budgets) | 9% |
Isis victory
Theresa May is yet one more prime minister to have attended Oxford. University affiliations of postwar PMs:
Oxford: Clement Attlee, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home, Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, David Cameron, Theresa May
Edinburgh: Gordon Brown
No university: Winston Churchill, James Callaghan, John Major
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