It was love at first sight! Mr Theresa tells all on TV
Red boxes? Never in the bedroom! ‘ Fake news’ claimed she was pregnant She had eye on No10 for YEARS
SHE is all for girl power in her Cabinet, but at home Theresa May clearly believes in jobs for the boys.
Interviewed with her husband Philip on live TV last night, the Prime Minister revealed a domestic division of labour along traditional lines.
It happened when Mr May was asked about their marriage and revealed to BBC1’s The One Show how it had been love at first sight for the pair. Mr May said there was ‘give and take in every marriage’ but joked that his room for manoeuvre in negotiations with his wife was limited.
‘I get to decide when I take the bins out, not if I take the bins out,’ he said.
The Prime Minister jumped in to say: ‘There’s boy jobs and girl jobs.’
Mr May admitted: ‘I do the traditional boy jobs, by and large.’
Mrs May, who has campaigned to get more women into politics, revealed that even her famous passion for shoes had a serious side. Four years ago she had met a young woman in a Commons lift. ‘I happened to look down and say “nice pair of shoes”, and she said “I like your shoes”.
‘And then she looked at me and said, “Your shoes got me involved in politics”.
‘There was somebody who through something normal – seeing an interest in shoes, she got into politics and was now working in the House of Commons.’ Her husband, asked whether he gets much wardrobe space, said: ‘I sort of get a little section carved out for myself.’
Last night’s TV appearance was designed to reveal a little of the personal side of the Prime Minister, who has acknowledged she can be a ‘bloody difficult woman’ when doing the day job. Mr May received no media training ahead of the live interview with Matt Baker and Alex Jones, and the Mays were not told about the questions in advance.
In an affectionate joint interview on The One Show sofa, the Prime Minister and her husband agreed it had been ‘love at first sight’ when they were introduced at an Oxford University student disco by mutual friend Benazir Bhutto – later prime minister of Pakistan.
Asked for his first impressions of the woman who would become his wife, Mr May said: ‘What a lovely girl!’ adding hastily: ‘And she still is.’ Asked whether he ‘fancied her instantly’, he replied: ‘Absolutely, it was love at first sight.’ Mrs May chimed in: ‘Likewise.’ Questioned on whether Mrs May’s government ‘red box’, containing her official papers, had been banned from the bedroom, he joked: ‘I don’t think it’s ever made an appearance. I’ve never had to try and shoo it out.’
Mr May insisted there were no downsides to being a prime minister’s husband, saying it was ‘ an enormous privilege for Theresa to be doing this job and for me to be there alongside her’. But he acknowledged it might not suit everyone, joking: ‘If you’re the kind of man who expects his tea to be on the table at six o’clock in the evening, you could be a little bit disappointed.’ He added: ‘Theresa’s a very good cook.’
The couple, married for almost 37 years, appeared relaxed, laugh- ing at each other’s jokes and finishing each other’s sentences. But there was a poignant moment when the programme showed pictures of the Mays’ wedding, conducted by Theresa’s Anglican vicar father Hubert Brasier in his Oxfordshire church in 1980, only a year before his death in a car crash.
‘It brings back huge memories of a very happy childhood,’ said Mrs May, looking at the photograph. ‘I was very fortunate. My parents... were very much of the view that it was up to me what I wanted to do. They didn’t say, “You can’t do that because you’re a girl” or “You can’t do this”, which is great.’
Mr May, who works for City firm Capital Group, let slip that his wife had harboured ambitions to get to No10 for as many as 15 years.
He said he had never heard her say she wanted to become prime minister until she was ‘well established’ in the shadow cabinet, which she joined in 1999.
Mr May, who spoke at a Tory conference in 1986, said it was never ‘thought through’ which of them would enter politics.
Addressing his wife, he said: ‘We were asked if one of us would like to stand for the local council and you were very keen to stand – and rightly, you were very good at it.’ Mrs May added: ‘It sort of fitted at the time.’ She added: ‘I’d wanted to become an MP from when I was at school. For me it’s always been about making a difference.’
Mrs May, who spoke last year about the pain of not being able to have children, bravely made light of how a ‘fake news’ story had once sparked false hope among members of their family.
‘Way back when I was wanting to be selected for a seat, one of the newspapers reported I was going to have trouble being selected as a Conservative candidate because of my new baby,’ she said. Mr May said: ‘My mum rang. She thought perhaps there was something we hadn’t told her.’ His wife added: ‘She was disappointed.’
Predictably, Mr May’s views on chores were denounced on Twitter. Jack Mayorcas tweeted: ‘Mr May regurgitating all the worst sexist stereotypes this country is yet to move on from. Uncomfortable to watch, and scary.’ Joshua Garfield added: ‘Oh my god Philip May thinks it’s still 1967.’
Other users took issue with Mrs May’s use of the phrase ‘boy jobs and girl jobs’.
‘What a lovely girl’