Mr. May makes global debut

LONDON — Theresa May touched down in Germany on Thursday with virtually the last member of her pre-election inner circle still left standing — her husband, Philip.

Philip May is on his first official overseas trip with his wife, the U.K. prime minister, who lost her two loyal chiefs of staff, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, following last month’s electoral debacle that cost her Tories their majority in parliament. Looking isolated in her own government, Theresa May is turning for support to her oldest ally in politics.

It is not a new role for Philip. He has been at his wife’s side for the key moments of her premiership. He stood behind her outside No. 10 Downing Street after her swift leadership victory last year as she vowed to devote her government to those who were “just about managing.” He was there when she took the fateful decision to gamble her slim majority on a snap general election. And he was there in the dark early hours of the morning after the polls closed, as her majority, and with it her authority and reputation, slipped away.

It was a political lifetime ago — January — when Hill and Timothy accompanied the prime minister on “May Force One” on her visit to the White House to meet Donald Trump just days after the new U.S. president’s inauguration speech. But while even the closest of political appointees can take the fall, the May marriage endures.

At the G20, Philip May has a defined role and schedule in Hamburg. He will take a boat trip in the afternoon, followed by a gala concert, where Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” (the EU’s anthem) will be played, and will dine with the prime minister, other leaders and their spouses in the evening. This first husband is one of just two male G20 “plus ones.”

He is like Denis Thatcher without the gin and tonics.

The only other G20 husband, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s husband Joachim Sauer, a research scientist, has organized a trip to the Climate Computing Center — perhaps a less-than-subtle dig at Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate change agreement. Philip May is expected to join that trip, alongside U.S. first lady Melania Trump.

Low profile

While Philip May keeps a low profile, he has always been involved in his wife’s political life, and is a familiar face around No.10 in his unofficial role as the prime minister’s most trusted adviser.

Well-liked by those working in No. 10, he spends more time walking around and chatting to staff than the prime minister, according to one former official.

He does not generally attend meetings, but one exception was a small gathering to put the finishing touches to May’s party conference speech last year. Philip May’s contribution was to agree on points made by Timothy, the prime minister’s then top adviser.

The Mays enter Downing Street following the prime minister’s speech the day after her near-disastrous snap general election | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

He was there when May made the riskiest, and as it turned out most damaging, decision of her premiership so far. It was while on a walking holiday in Wales with her husband that she decided to call a snap general election. “Before Easter, I spent a few days walking in Wales with my husband, thought about this long and hard and came to the decision,” May told ITV News at the time.

Charles Hollingsworth, who has known the Mays since 2000 and worked side-by-side with Theresa May on the 2001 and 2005 general election campaigns in Maidenhead, her constituency, told POLITICO before the election that Philip May was the “ideal spouse” and said they seemed to “work symbiotically.”

Another member of her Maidenhead party association, Richard Kellaway, agreed they were a “fantastic pair.”

“I don’t think she could do it without him. He is like Denis Thatcher without the gin and tonics,” he said.

Europe Minister Alan Duncan, an old friend of the Mays, also speaking to POLITICO before the election, said: “I think that anyone at the top of public life benefits from a solid partner back home. He has provided that for decades — it is a very strong and stable, and enduring partnership.”

The Mays at Henley Royal Regatta on June 30, 2017 | Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Philip May’s career was in the City of London. He worked for the stockbroker De Zoete & Bevan after university, moving to fund management at Prudential and then Deutsche Asset Management. He now works for Capital Group, which said when Theresa May became prime minister that his job was to ensure clients “are happy with the service being delivered by Capital Group and that we understand their goals.”

Political past

He has not always played a behind-the-scenes role in politics, however. Philip is a former president of the Oxford Union Society, the historic Oxford University debating society that has hosted U.S. presidents, including Richard Nixon, and U.K. prime ministers, including Winston Churchill.

And during the Margaret Thatcher era, he publicly pushed Tory activists to back Britain’s involvement in Europe. In 1986 he successfully presented a motion at the Conservatives’ annual conference calling on the party to “build up” the “political and economic strength of the European Community” — the forerunner to the European Union.

While Philip May continues to have his own career in the City, he has always maintained his grass-roots role as his wife has moved up the political career ladder.

The Mays met at Oxford University (they were introduced by the future prime minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, at a Conservative Party student disco) and married in 1980. They were prominent members of the Wimbledon Conservative Association, where Philip was chairman from 1990-1993.

While Philip May continues to have his own career in the City, he has always maintained his grass-roots role as his wife has moved up the political career ladder. During the election campaign he was regularly out and about in Maidenhead doing his bit to get his wife reelected. “Through the years [Philip May] has organized canvassing and that sort of thing. He is extremely active,” Kellaway said.

There was also the cringeworthy sofa interview alongside the prime minister on TV program The One Show during which the nation learned that he did the “boy jobs” of putting out the Downing Street bins.

For the most part though, he has avoided being cast as the public political spouse, preferring to play a behind-the-scenes role. The Hamburg trip is his first chance to step out from the shadows and into the glare of international media, though with his wife’s position as prime minister so precarious, it may be his last.

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