Theresa May

Theresa May grew up in Oxfordshire, studied at Oxford, and spent years at the Bank of England before entering Parliament in 1997 after two failed attempts. She climbed through shadow cabinet roles and party chairmanship before becoming Home Secretary in 2010, holding the post longer than anyone in six decades - restricting immigration, deporting Abu Qatada, creating the National Crime Agency. A Remain supporter who pivoted after the 2016 referendum, she inherited the premiership unopposed when Cameron resigned. She triggered Article 50 in March 2017, then called a snap election two months later to secure her "strong and stable" mandate. The Conservatives lost their majority. What followed was a grinding attempt to pass a withdrawal agreement through a hung Parliament: the Chequers plan, three rejections, two no-confidence votes, all while managing terror attacks, Grenfell, Windrush, and the Skripal poisoning response. She resigned in July 2019, succeeded by Boris Johnson. Historians place her in the bottom quarter.