QUENTIN LETTS: OK, there's the jazzy shoes, but one of life's thigh-slappers she ain't. Despite this, Westminster's asking... Will this woman be the next Tory leader? Theresa May's proudest acquisition since becoming Home Secretary has not been her chauffeur-driven Jaguar or her royal seals of office. What really tickled her was a recent letter from former cricketer Geoffrey Boycott. Quintessential Yorkshireman "Boycs" had heard that Mrs May was a fan. In an interview she had recalled following Test matches on the wireless as a girl, when she and her father would quietly rejoice as Boycott steered England to safety. Boycott was seldom a flamboyant batsman. He scored runs rather as a tortoise goes about its scavenging. Yet he was the young Theresa's pin-up. What really tickled her was a recent letter from former cricketer Geoffrey Boycott A chuffed Boycott has now invited Mrs May to a match at Headingley later this summer. "She is thrilled," says an acquaintance. Having been trimmed of some of its duties six years ago, the role of Home Secretary is not as daunting a job as it was, yet Mrs May has shown poise, dispassion and increasing political confidence in this testing brief. She has tamed the truculent Police Federation, defended the counter-terrorism budget and stood up to the Americans when they wanted to extradite autistic Gary McKinnon from our shores on a computer-hacking charge. She has stopped several dodgy Islamists from entering the country and has fought a long battle to bring down immigration. At the same time, crime rates have fallen strikingly and she has been able to extend a peace token to Afro-Caribbeans in announcing a review of the stop-and-search procedures which they so understandably dislike. All this and she has muzzled her shadow, Labour's bitey Yvette Cooper. Miss Cooper was once spoken of as a potential Labour leader, but we hear less of that nowadays. Poor Yvette. How maddening to find herself up against such a competent woman. This week, Mrs May had her greatest success to date. She swept into the Commons on Monday and was able to tell MPs that she had finally solved the outrageous legal impasse over Muslim extremist preacher Abu Qatada. Having been trimmed of some of its duties six years ago, the role of Home Secretary is not as daunting a job as it was, yet Mrs May has shown poise, dispassion and increasing political confidence in this testing brief For 12 years, Home Secretaries had failed to deport the odious Qatada. Finally, the hate preacher had been stuck on an aeroplane and flown to Jordan. Mrs May had sliced through the lawyers" Gordian knot. Here was that rarest of creatures: a politician who had kept a promise. She was widely congratulated, with one Labour MP saying: "No wonder she is talked of as a future Tory leader." No wonder, indeed. But could the leadership really fall her way? How is the 56-year-old placed politically? And what makes this sometimes bloodless Home Secretary tick? She became an MP in 1997, just as the Tories" long years of Opposition began. She quickly caught the eye as a serious if staunchly partisan parliamentary performer. She would leap to her large feet from a Commons bench just behind ministers, and I remember thinking: "She's a bit head-girlish, but she could boss us all around one day." She was only just 40 at the time, though she seemed older. There has never been much of the imp, much of the gadabout, in tight-lipped Theresa. She is an abstemious soul, little given to guffaws. On hearing jokes she will narrow her eyes and try to unpick them, as though they were in code. One of life's thigh-slappers she ain't. Promotions in the meagre Tory platoon of William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith came early. By 2002 she was chairman of the party - the first woman to hold that position - and she made a celebrated speech to conference delegates in Bournemouth when she told them that they were seen as "the nasty party." Mrs May had sliced through the lawyers' Gordian knot Her message was bold. She was saying the Conservatives had to cease their snarling antipathy to modern Britain and should aspire to understand, and even like, the country they hoped to govern. It is a measure of the silliness of the baleful Right that this was considered (and is still considered by Ukip moustaches) somehow controversial. To many of us it was entirely obvious. The Tory party had retreated into a saloon-bar ghetto and looked at least three decades out of date. Theresa May was neither a foaming neo-Con nor a child of the swish set. She has never been much impressed by fashion, at least of the political variety. She does wear jazzy shoes (are those leopard-print flatties perhaps a plea to be seen as colourful?), and she has a taste for idiosyncratic collars which make her look like an astronaut who has yet to don her helmet. Political trends are not her thing, though. She is a pragmatist. The most grown-up politicians usually are. Her father, Hubert, was an Anglican clergyman who schooled his daughter at a state primary, independent convent and state grammar. Politics interested the teenage Theresa - she stuffed envelopes for the local Conservative Association - but did not devour her life. At Oxford University she read geography. It was staid, but it suited her literal streak. At the debating society she met her future husband, Philip. They were introduced to one another by their friend Benazir Bhutto, who would later become prime minister of Pakistan (Bhutto was assassinated in 2007). One who knew the Mays in their early married days says banker Philip was the one thought more likely to go into politics. It was presumed Theresa would be the wage-earner. She, too, had gone into the City - interbank-lending rather than anything more raffish. But then she was elected to Merton Borough Council, had success running local schools, and her political ambition was stoked. In 1995, at the fifth attempt, she was chosen as a Tory parliamentary candidate. She landed the plum new seat of Maidenhead, her beaten rivals including local baronet Sir George Young MP (whose West London seat was disappearing in boundary changes) and a straight-haired drainpipe called Philip Hammond. Both now sit alongside her in the Cabinet. The Tory Home Secretaryship came her way by fate. It had probably been destined for David Davis until he, in an act of political kamikaze, quit the Shadow Cabinet in 2008. When the Coalition was formed, David Cameron - short of women at his top table - turned to Mrs May as Home Secretary. Her gender and understated centrism suited the hour. It has been the making of her The Tories" Home Affairs brief passed to Dominic Grieve and then to Chris Grayling. Neither quite shone. When the Coalition was formed, David Cameron - short of women at his top table - turned to the efficient, unspectacular Mrs May as Home Secretary. It has been the making of her. Although she has shed two stone (she worries about her weight), she has gained in political clout. From the moment she scrapped compulsory ID cards, she acted with certainty but never without first analysing the minefield ahead. When confronted by problems, she has never lost her temper. She has never essayed Michael Gove-style linguistic acrobatics but stuck doggedly to her text, repeating phrases and arguments until her opponents trudge away in bored despair. Pure Geoffrey Boycott. Some say she is a poor member of the sisterhood. She certainly found it hard working with the original security minister, strongly-opinionated Lady Neville-Jones. It is said that Lady N-J, a former spook, refused to vouchsafe some national secret to Mrs May on the grounds that she did not have adequate security clearance. Mrs May is one of the few Cabinet Tories prepared to block David Cameron and George Osborne, an example being the recent row about minimum-pricing for alcohol This was the Home Secretary she was talking to! Lady Neville-Jones left the Government early. In political terms, you could say her body was found floating in the Thames. Another female minister, daffy Lib Dem equalities obsessive Lynne Featherstone, was also shunted out of the Home Office. She is one of the few Cabinet Tories prepared to block David Cameron and George Osborne, an example being the recent row about minimum-pricing for alcohol. The Notting Hill Cameroons and the Lib Dems supported this nanny-state idea on health grounds. Mrs May, in alliance with Michael Gove, thought voters were adult enough to make up their own minds about strong drink. She went to address the Police Federation - which has taken great offence at the Government's attempts to modernise the constabulary - and was booed, big-time. Yet she did not shrivel. She did not shriek. She finished her speech, coldy thanked the delegates for their time, and kept her dignity while her hecklers ended up looking like brutes. Mrs May stuck to her policy of cutting the police budget by 20 per cent - as it had to be to balance the national books. At the same time, the crime rate has dropped by 10 per cent. These successes are breeze blocks upon which a leadership bid could eventually be launched. One future opponent for Mrs May could be Boris Johnson. Earlier this year, when there was speculation about David Cameron's future and the Mayor of London started making mischief, Mrs May laid down markers that she would fight for the Tory leadership if there was a vacancy. In two speeches on the think-tank circuit she stated her philosophy: a belief in lower-middle-class aspiration and a determination to reduce "concentrations of power," whether Whitehall officials or big business. Mr Cameron was initially peeved by such naked jockeying for position but there has since been a rapprochement. Mrs May has let it be known she is not hoping to oust Mr Cameron: she is simply determined that Boris Johnson should not stroll into high office. I am told she finds his shallowness childish and his repeated adultery deplorable. It affronts her both as a child of the vicarage and as a woman. She has no time for Boris's fnarr-fnarr celebrity politics. Mrs May is not yet perfect leadership material. The weight loss has left her looking gaunt on telly. Her sense of humour is, well, elusive. She makes the late Margaret Thatcher seem like Ken Dodd. These things should not matter but they do. Talking of Mrs T, there are similarities: the steely challenging of political colleagues on professional matters, but attentive politeness to clerical staff; a fondness for Alpine walking; a voice that could do with a squirt of honey; a reverence for church. There are similarities between Mrs May and the late Lady Thatcher: the steely challenging of political colleagues on professional matters, but attentive politeness to clerical staff Lib Dem colleagues talk in awe of Mrs May's "Thatcheresque" appetite for detail. She settles down to her ministerial red boxes when she returns home after evening engagements, and she tends to take big decisions, such as the blocking of the extradition of Gary McKinnon, late at night, when she is away from civil servants and has only her husband for company. Is there something of dependable Denis Thatcher to the low-key Philip May? She continues to do "constituency doorsteps" in Maidenhead most Saturdays. Her rare moments of relaxation come from reading detective novels and from cooking. Is she too old to be thought a future leader? The Chinese would laugh at such a question. And have we not had enough of gauche youths running our political parties? Mrs May is certainly trying to expand her political support. She speaks at numerous Tory Association "rubber chicken" dinners, and her informal team of supporters at Westminster includes former Cabinet colleagues Cheryl Gillan and Caroline Spelman, junior minister Edward Timpson and backbench lawyer Dominic Raab. Her parliamentary private secretary, former businessman George Hollingbery, has been taking her into the Commons tea room to improve her acquaintance with MPs. She has also started holding weekly "surgeries" for MPs on Wednesdays, after Prime Minister's Questions. "Her team know she is a bit robotic, but slowly the human wiring is showing signs of life," says a backbench MP. Mrs May has shown herself to be a resilient, bloody-minded performer, determined not to throw away her wicket. She will enjoy her day at Headingley for the cricket and I suspect Geoffrey Boycott will be impressed by her visit. The gritty innings-builder should recognise a kindred spirit.