Hello and welcome to The Rundown, a podcast from Politics Home with me Alan Tolhurst.

This week marked nine years since Theresa May entered Downing Street, after her rivals fell in a heap

one by one in a chaotic Tory leadership contest following David Cameron's resignation the morning

after the EU referendum. And while Brexit was the reason

she became Prime Minister, ultimately it was the thing that ended her premiership too, after she was

unable to get a deal through Parliament. And consequently, most look back on her tenure as a failure.

But looking back now, while her three years in Number 10 were undoubtedly some of the most chaotic,

they might also be some of the most consequential, with events and legislation taking place that still impact our politics now,

despite the vast stream of history that's thundered through in the year since she left office.

So with me to take another look at what Theresa May's time as PM achieved,

what the current Downing Street incumbent Kirstama can learn about dealing with the difficult

inheritance and global headwinds, while also trying to get your own agenda implemented, and delighted

to be joined by Baroness Jojo Penn, who was Deputy Chief of Staff under Theresa May. Alongside

her is Seema Kennedy, the former Tory MP, who is May's parliamentary private secretary,

and also the journalist and author Isabel Hardman, assistant editor of The Spectator.

And later in the episode, I'll catch up with Paul Harrison, who was Theresa May's press

secretary.

But first, I wanted to start with you, Isabel. You covered the May premiership extensively.

Six years or so after she stepped down, what are your kind of

main thoughts about it? I was watching something where Alan Duncan talked about her having a

turbocharged hospital pass when she started. Is that really kind of the defining feature,

I suppose, of how we look back now on her premiership? Yeah, I mean, the Conservative Party was

...