Theresa May: my beliefs make me a 'bloody difficult woman'

Theresa May today said she was happy to be seen as a “bloody difficult woman” if it meant she was fighting for her beliefs.

In a round of interviews, the Prime Minister revealed that she got angry about issues such as child abuse and slavery which involve “the powerful abusing their position”.

She also declared that she did not mind people commenting about her famously varied and expensive kitten heels because it gave her an excuse to shop for more.

Mrs May shed some of her reserve during the radio and TV interviews and when asked about Kenneth Clarke’s comment that she was difficult, which was accidentally recorded during the leadership campaign, she told LBC: “Well, you know, Ken and I had our interesting debates in the past. And if standing up for what you believe to be right is being ‘bloody difficult’, then so be it.”

Asked what made her angry, she told the BBC: “Injustice. What makes me angry? Child sexual abuse. Modern slavery. When we see the powerful abusing their position. That’s what makes me angry.”

On ITV, when asked if she found it sexist that people commented on her shoes, she joked: “It is interesting people focus on my shoes. I don’t think they focus on Philip Hammond’s or Boris Johnson’s in quite the same way.

She also insisted the troubled probe into child abuse was not “too broad” in its scope.

She said the inquiry’s work was carrying on despite the recent resignations of its former chairwoman and a senior lawyer.

Mrs May insisted the Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse had to maintain its wide focus in order to properly learn the lessons of what went wrong in a series of institutions.

The inquiry is under its fourth chairwoman and senior lawyer Ben Emmerson QC quit last month, as did junior counsel Elizabeth Prochaska.

Former chairwoman Dame Lowell Goddard, who quit in August, has called for the inquiry to be overhauled, saying “there is an inherent problem in the sheer scale and size”.

But Mrs May defended the scope of the inquiry, which is now being led by Professor Alexis Jay.

She said some victims had been waiting decades for somebody “actually to listen to them and to do something about it”.@joemurphyLondon