Theresa May: Some fast facts

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May. She is Anglican. PHOTO | TOLGA AKMEN | AFP

It is May Day in Nairobi.

The British prime minister is expected to hold bilateral talks with President Uhuru Kenyatta at State House and later address a public lecture at Strathmore University.

But who is this woman who leads one of the world’s economic and military powerhouses?

Here are some interesting facts about the British leader:

  • Theresa Mary May is the second woman to hold the position of British prime minister after Margaret Thatcher, who held the position from the year 1975 to 1990.

  • Also like the late Mrs Thatcher, Mrs May is the leader of the Conservative Party, since 2016.

  • She joined active politics in 1997 when she ran and was elected as the MP for Maidenhead.

  • She was a student at the prestigious University Oxford, from where she graduated in 1977 with a degree in geography at St. Hugh’s College.

  • Besides politics, Mrs May enjoys cooking. She owns 100 cook books.

  • In January 2017, Mrs May was the first foreign leader to meet the then newly elected US President Donald Trump.

  • She was appointed Home Secretary in May 2010. She held the position until July 2016.

  • Theresa May was responsible for the ban of the exportation of khat (miraa) from Kenya and its use in the UK, against the advice of experts on drug use.

  • The UK Prime minister is diabetic. She was diagnosed with diabetes mellitus, also known as Type 1 diabetes, in 2012 and injects insulin daily.

  • She co-founded Women2Win, an organisation dedicated to increasing the amount of women in the Conservative Party in Parliament.

  • She was introduced to her husband, also a student at Oxford, in 1976 by Benazir Bhutto, who later became the prime minister of Pakistan.

  • She is a practicing Anglican.