Curbs on executive pay, restrictions on foreign takeovers and workers on boards. Not Jeremy Corbyn’s plan for Britain, but ideas raised by Theresa May and put forward for discussion at her cabinet committee on the economy and industrial strategy. Not for 40 years have the Tories had a Prime Minister so firmly on the left of the party.
May joined the Tories before Margaret Thatcher became leader and in many ways she represents a bridge back to the pre-Thatcher era. That is why comparisons between Britain’s two female prime ministers don’t reveal much — they come from very different traditions.
Since Thatcherism took over the party, many Tories have looked to the United States for intellectual inspiration. But May is more of a continental-style Christian Democrat. Her last conference speech was described by one Tory who has known her since Oxford as ‘the most Christian Democrat speech by a Tory leader I’ve ever heard’.
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