Who is Theresa May: A profile of UK’s new prime minister

On the plus side crime levels fell, the UK avoided a mass terrorist attack and in 2013, she successfully deported radical cleric Abu Qatada – something she lists as one of her proudest achievements, along with preventing the extradition to America of computer hacker Gary McKinnon.

She was not afraid to take on vested interests, stunning the annual conference of the Police Federation in 2014 by telling them corruption problems were not just limited to “a few bad apples” and threatening to end the federation’s automatic right to enrol officers as its members.

However, the Passport Office suffered a near meltdown while she has faced constant criticism over the government’s failure to meet its promise to get net migration down to below 100,000 a year.

Labour MP Yvette Cooper, who went up against her in the Commons as shadow home secretary, told The Guardian:, external “I respect her style – it is steady and serious. She is authoritative in parliament – superficial attacks on her bounce off.

“The flip side is that she is not fleet of foot when crises build, she digs in her heels (remember the Passport Agency crisis in 2014 when the backlog caused hundreds to miss their holidays, and the Border Force crisis in 2011 when border checks were axed).

“And she hides when things go wrong. No interviews, no quotes, nothing to reassure people or to remind people she even exists. It’s helped her survive as home secretary – but if you are prime minister, eventually the buck has to stop.”

There was a bitter public row with cabinet colleague Michael Gove over the best way to combat Islamist extremism, which ended with Mr Gove having to apologise to the prime minister and Mrs May having to sack a long-serving special adviser – a turf war which is said to have led to a diminution in her admiration for the prime minister.