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That article seems to have been removed.
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Theresa May is a great self-promoter, but a terrible Home Secretary
1 July 2016 • 10:25am
Britain's Home Secretary, Theresa May, leaves after a cabinet meeting in Downing Street in central London
Theresa May leaves Downing Street Credit: Peter Nicholls/Reuters
 In the run-up to the 2015 election, one of the handicaps David Cameron had to finesse was the fact that net migration to the UK was three times as high as he had promised it would be. Remarkably, none of the opprobrium this failure provoked brought forth the name of Theresa May, the cabinet minister actually entrusted with bringing migration down. Then, as now, it was as if the icy Home Secretary had a dark magic that warded off all critical scrutiny.
The fact that her lead role in this fiasco went unnoticed and unmentioned likely reflects Mrs May’s brilliant, all-consuming efforts to burnish her image with a view to become prime minister.
May launches her bid to succeed Cameron May launches her bid to succeed Cameron Play! 01:42
After all, Mrs May’s tenure as Home Secretary has been little better than disastrous – a succession of derelictions that has left Britain’s borders and coastline at least as insecure as they were in 2010, and which mean that British governments still rely on guesswork to estimate how many people enter and leave the country.
People find this hard to credit because she exudes determination and strength. Compared to many of her bland, flabby cabinet colleagues, she has real gravitas. And few who follow British politics would deny that she is a deadly political infighter. Indeed Theresa May is to Westminster what Cersei Lannister is to Westeros in Game of Thrones: no one who challenges her survives undamaged, while the welfare of the realm is of secondary concern.      Â
Theresa May: British police to be deployed to Euros Theresa May: British police to be deployed to Euros Play! 00:53
Take the demoralised, underfunded UK Border Force. As the public discovered after a people-smugglers’ vessel ran aground in May, it has has only three cutters protecting 7,700 miles of coastline. Italy by contrast has 600 boats patrolling its 4722 miles.
Considering the impression Mrs May gives of being serious about security, it’s all the more astonishing that she has also allowed the UK’s small airfields to go unpatrolled - despite the vastly increased terrorist threat of the last few years, the onset of the migration crisis, and the emergence of smuggling networks that traffic people, drugs and arms.
Then there is the failure to establish exit checks at all the country’s airports and ports. These were supposed to be in place by March 2015. Â
Border checks 'suspended regularly' since 2007 Border checks 'suspended regularly' since 2007 Play! 02:18
Unfortunately the Border Force isn’t the only organisation under Mrs May’s control that is manifestly unfit for purpose. Recent years have seen a cavalcade of Home Office decisions about visas and deportations that suggest a department with a bizarre sense of the national interest.
The most infamous was the refusal of visas to Afghan interpreters who served with the British forces in Afghanistan - as Lord Guthrie said, a national shame. Â
Mrs May has kept so quiet about this and other scandals - such as the collapse of the eBorders IT system, at cost of almost a billion pounds - that you might imagine someone else was in charge the Home Office.
[It’s not just a matter of the odd error. Yvette Cooper pointed out in 2013 that despite Coalition rhetoric, the number of people refused entry to the UK had dropped by 50 per cent, the backlog of finding failed asylum seekers had gone up and the number of illegal immigrants deported had gone down.]
The reputation for effectiveness that Mrs May nevertheless enjoys derives from a single, endlessly cited event: the occasion in 2014 when she delivered some harsh truths to a conference of the Police Federation.
Cameron: Relaxation of border checks is 'unacceptable' Cameron: Relaxation of border checks is 'unacceptable' Play! 00:46
Unfortunately this was an isolated incident that, given the lack of any subsequent (or previous) effort at police reform, seems to have been intended mainly for public consumption. Â
In general Mrs May has avoided taking on the most serious institutional problems that afflict British policing. These include a disturbing willingness by some forces to let public relations concerns determine policing priorities, widespread overreliance on CCTV, the widespread propensity to massage crime numbers, the extreme risk aversion manifested during the London riots, and the preference for diverting police resources to patrol social media rather than the country’s streets.
There is also little evidence that Mrs May has paid much attention to the failure of several forces to protect vulnerable girls from the ethnically-motivated sexual predation seen in Rotherham and elsewhere. Nor, despite her supposed feminism, has Mrs May’s done much to ensure that girls from certain ethnic groups are protected from forced marriage and genital mutilation. But again, Mrs May has managed to evade criticism for this.
When considering her suitability for party leadership, it’s also worth remembering Mrs May’s notorious “lack of collegialityâ€.
David Laws’ memoirs paint a vivid picture of a secretive, rigid, controlling, even vengeful minister, so unpleasant to colleagues that a dread of meetings with her was something that cabinet members from both parties could bond over.
 Unsurprisingly, Mrs May’s overwhelming concern with taking credit and deflecting blame made for a difficult working relationship with her department, just as her propensity for briefing the press against cabinet colleagues made her its most disliked member in two successive governments.
 It is possible that Mrs May’s intimidating ruthlessness could make her the right person to negotiate with EU leaders. However, there’s little in her record to suggest she possesses either strong negotiation skills or the ability to win allies among other leaders, unlike Michael Gove, of whom David Laws wrote “it was possible to disagree with him but impossible to dislike him,â€
It’s surely about time – and not too late – for conservatives to look behind Mrs May’s carefully-wrought image and consider if she really is the right person to lead the party and the country.
There’s a vast gulf between being effective in office, and being effective at promoting yourself; it’s not one that Theresa May has yet crossed.
1 October 1956 (age 59)
Odds: 1/3
EU vote: Remain
Key backers: Jeremy Hunt, Justine Greening, Damian Green, Seema Kennedy
Theresa May bills herself as the tough negotiator who can get Britain a good deal with Brussels when the talks about Brexit start, which she says will be next year.
Mrs May is the most experienced of the candidates, shadowing every major policy portfolio apart from foreign affairs and the Treasury in Opposition, and becoming the longest serving Home Secretary in history by holding the post continuously since May 2010.
She is selling herself as the unshowy Cabinet minister who can get results and stand up for herself – whether it is by deporting radical cleric Abu Qatata to Jordan, or stopping the deportation of computer hacker Gary McKinnon despite angering the US Government.
“My pitch is simple - I’m Theresa May and I think I’m the best person to lead this country.”
- Announcing her leadership bid on 30 June 2016
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A comment today in Mail on Line. Apparently ...
"Telegraph pulled story critical (but factual) of May, at the request of "HER TEAM". No names mind."
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That explains why I could see the article first time I looked, but when I went back later to study it in more detail, it had gone.
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