May be, may be not: home secretary gives little away on Desert Island Discs Theresa May is a politician known for keeping her cards close to her chest and her appearance on Sunday's episode of Desert Island Discs proved that getting a glimpse behind her politician's facade is no easy feat. Indeed, pinning down May, the longest-serving home secretary in 50 years, on the specifics of anything from the part of her job she finds most challenging ("at any particular time a particular aspect of the work can have a different focus") to whether she would ever consider running for prime minister, proved a challenging task for the host, Kirsty Young. Young went as far as to note that May was blessed with the slippery politician's gift of being "very good at avoiding direct questions." Her music choices, ranging from two hymns and Abba's Dancing Queen to the obligatory Mozart selection, proved as conservative as her political leanings and, with nothing from after 1976, May made no attempt to emulate either David Cameron's contemporary selections of The Killers and Radiohead or even Ed Miliband's penchant for A-ha. It was an interview that provided only rare glimpses into May's life outside of Westminster, from evenings spent dancing to the Jersey Boys in the local village hall with friends and her husband-of-35-years Philip, whom she met at an Oxford University Conservative Association disco, to the single shop where she buys most of her notably fashion-conscious outfits (and who call her up specially when they got "something nice in"). Her love for fashion was also made very evident in her choice of a lifetime subscription to Vogue as her desert island luxury item. What did emerge was the picture of May as a studious only child, the daughter of an Anglican vicar who spent most of her childhood reading and stuffed envelopes for the local Conservative Association from the age of 12. Perhaps unsurprisingly, May, by her own admission, was not a rebellious child and the only outrageous element of her life growing up in the 70s appears to have been her wardrobe choices: "Flared trousers and ... a yellow blouse that had huge voluminous sleeves." Asked by Young if she was a conscientious student, May said: "I'm afraid so, yes. I enjoyed reading, I did my homework, I was that sort of schoolgirl. She added: "At no stage did I take issue with the church ... I didn't feel the need to kick the traces. Her pragmatic and no-nonsense approach even seemed to extend to her own health. Discussing her own recent diagnosis of type 1 diabetes without an element of self-pity, May told Young that she handled the disease as she did with most things in life: "I just get on and deal with it, get on and do the job. I'm on an insulin regime so I'm injecting insulin four times a day ... You just have to get into a routine. It seems to be in the kitchen where the wilder, more spontaneous side of May (who confessed to owning more than 100 cookery books) really emerges. The home secretary deemed Delia too precise and conservative for her culinary tastes, preferring the Mediterranean palette of Yotam Ottolenghi and the "throw in a bunch of this and a handful of that" style of Jamie Oliver. As a leading female politician and the favourite by many within the Conservative party to be Cameron's successor, the comparisons with Margaret Thatcher are almost unavoidable for May and Young made a direct reference to the Iron Lady in the first minute of the interview. May expertly refused to be drawn into any speculation. "My view is very simple," she said. David Cameron is a first-class leader of the party and a first-class prime minister and I hope he's going to be doing that for a very long time. However, she was also clear that whatever she decided to do, May would not make herself any more "clubbable" nor join the old boys" network to get there. "I'm very clear that women in politics, in business, in whatever field they are in, should be able to do the jobs as themselves and not feel they've got to walk like a man," she told Young.