特里萨•梅 英国第二位女首相

As Theresa May stepped through the black door of 10 Downing Street on Wednesday evening as Britain’s prime minister, she did exactly what she had promised when launching her leadership bid two weeks earlier: “I just get on with the job in front of me.”

特里萨•梅(Theresa May)上周三晚上作为英国首相迈入唐宁街10号黑门之后，做了两周前她在竞选保守党党魁时承诺的事情：“我只是投入我面前的工作。”

The quiet woman of British politics has played the long game and triumphed. The UK has its second female prime minister, and the first with the task of taking the country out of a major supranational organisation.

这位英国政界的低调女性从长计议，最终脱颖而出。她是英国历史上第二位女首相，也是首位肩负着带领英国脱离一个主要超国家组织的使命的女首相。

On entering office Mrs May, who is 59, immediately set about a radical overhaul of Whitehall’s structure, ruthlessly disposing of several former colleagues and startling observers around the world by making her erstwhile leadership rival Boris Johnson foreign secretary.

现年59岁的梅上台伊始就大刀阔斧地调整白厅架构，她毫不留情地遣散了数位以前的同僚，并让昔日的竞争对手鲍里斯•约翰逊(Boris Johnson)出任外交大臣，这让世界各地的观察家们感到震惊。

She faces immense challenges: she must extricate the UK from the EU while reuniting a bitterly divided party. If her predecessor David Cameron’s primary legacy was the referendum outcome, hers will be the implementation of the British public’s shock decision.

梅面临艰巨挑战：她必须让英国脱离欧盟，同时让陷入严重分裂的保守党重新团结起来。如果说她的前任戴维•卡梅伦(David Cameron)的主要政治遗产是让英国公投退出欧盟，那么她的主要政治遗产将是实施英国公众令人震惊的决定。

Mrs May’s record in government hints at her aptitude for the task. The longest-serving home secretary for 50 years, her low-key approach to the job saw her outlast flashier and higher-profile rivals.

梅的政府任职经历暗示她擅长履行此项使命。她是50年来任职最久的内政大臣，她低调的做事方法让她比那些更张扬和高调的同僚干得更久。

Colleagues describe her as calm and tenacious; during the leadership contest Ken Clarke, a former chancellor, called her a “bloody difficult woman”. Mrs May made a virtue of it, saying: “The next person to find that out will be Jean-Claude Juncker.”

同僚们形容她冷静而坚韧；在竞争保守党党魁期间，前财政大臣肯•克拉克(Ken Clarke)将她称为“非常不好对付的女人”。梅巧妙地把这种评价变成自己的一项优势，她表示：“下一个发现我这一点的将是让-克劳德•容克(Jean-Claude Juncker)。”

On entering Downing Street, Mrs May struck a One Nation tone reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher, who recited Francis of Assisi’s “where there is discord” prayer. Mrs May pledged to govern for the many and not “the privileged few”, and to address Britain’s deep divisions.

梅在入主唐宁街的演讲中主张“一个国家”，这让人想起了玛格丽特•撒切尔(Margaret Thatcher)，后者在当选英国首相的演讲中诵读了圣方济各(Francis of Assisi)的“凡是有不和的地方”的祷文。梅誓言为多数人、而不是为“少数特权阶层”执政，并解决英国的深层次隔阂。

Within hours, she had sacked George Osborne, the chancellor, who had championed austerity and greatly reduced funding for local councils, forcing deep cuts to social care and other basic services. Mrs May needs to win over the disaffected millions who chose to leave the EU as a protest and who in recent years have seen no improvement — even a worsening — of their prospects. Her ambition is more than political. She has a sense of social justice and altruism forged in an upbringing as the only child of an Anglican vicar in Oxfordshire. She has said of her childhood that “you didn’t think about yourself”.

在成为英国首相的数小时内，梅辞退了财政大臣乔治•奥斯本(George Osborne)。奥斯本曾大力倡导紧缩政策，大幅削减地方议会拨款，还大力削减社会福利和其他基本服务项目。梅需要争取数百万心怀不满的选民——这些人选择退欧来进行抗议，他们这几年的生活前景没有任何起色，甚至还有所恶化。她的抱负不仅仅在政治领域。作为牛津郡一位圣公会牧师的独生女儿，梅在孩童时期就树立了社会公正和为公众服务的观念。她在谈及自己的孩童时期时表示，“你不考虑你自己”。

Theresa Brasier was educated at state schools before studying geography at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. She met Philip May in 1976 at a university Conservative association disco: they were introduced by Benazir Bhutto, later Pakistan’s prime minister.

特里萨•布拉西耶(Theresa Brasier)小时候在公立学校上学，后来到了牛津大学圣休学院(St Hugh's College)攻读地理专业。1976年，她在学校的保守党协会迪斯科舞会上遇到了菲利普•梅(Philip May)：他们是由后来担任巴基斯坦总理的贝娜齐尔•布托(Benazir Bhutto)介绍认识的。

The couple married in 1980 and both went to work in the City of London: Mrs May at the Bank of England and then the Association for Payment Clearing Services before becoming MP for Maidenhead in 1997. Mr May works at Capital Group, a US fund manager.

两人在1980年结婚，并都前往伦敦金融城工作：梅进入英格兰银行(BoE)，接着在支付清算协会工作，随后在1997年成为梅登黑德(Maidenhead)的议员。菲利普现在任职于美国基金管理公司Capital Group。

The prime minister spoke recently about the couple’s sadness at not having children. This became an issue during the leadership race when her rival Andrea Leadsom suggested that being a mother made her a better candidate, then apologised before dropping out.

梅最近谈到他们的遗憾是没有孩子。在竞选保守党领导人期间，梅的竞争对手安德里亚•利德索姆(Andrea Leadsom)曾表示，身为人母让她成为一个更合适的候选人，后来利德索姆就此道歉，并退出了竞选。

The implosion of Mrs Leadsom’s campaign reflects one of Mrs May’s tactics: to stand back and let rivals trip themselves up. In meetings she lets “silence fill the room”, tempting others to “start babbling”, according to one official.

利德索姆的竞选出现内爆，反映了梅的战术之一：后退一步，让竞争对手自己出错。一位官员表示，她在开会时“让沉默弥漫整个房间”，让受不了静默的人先开口表态。

Another aspect of her operating style is the cultivation of a wide support base. She has spent many evenings nurturing local Conservative associations. Her greatest achievement in Tory politics to date is Women2Win, a group she co-founded, which campaigns to elect more Conservative women into parliament. This has given her a powerful network of contacts under male colleagues’ radar. The number of female Conservative MPs has risen from 13 when Mrs May entered parliament in 1997, to 68 in last year’s general election.

她的另一个行事风格是培育广泛的支持基础。她花了许多个晚上培育地方上的保守党协会。她在保守党政治中迄今取得的最大成就是与他人联合创办Women2Win，该机构主张选举更多的保守党女性进入议会。这让梅在没有引起男性同僚注意的情况下获得了强大的人脉。在1997年梅当选议员的时候，保守党有13名女性议员，到去年大选的时候该数字增长到68人。

Mrs May’s usually low-key approach accentuates the relish with which she tackles occasional radical moves. Her sweeping cabinet reshuffle was one such, and that ruthlessness was evident during her time at the Home Office when she took on powerful vested interests such as Britain’s police forces.

梅通常行事低调，这让她偶尔的彻底做法更为引人注目。她迅速对内阁洗牌就是这样的一个例子，这种无情也体现在她执掌内政部期间，当时她与英国警察部门等强大的既得利益者展开较量。

On both immigration and civil liberties, however, she has been a hawk, criticised by campaigners for policies such as ordering vans to drive around with boards warning illegal immigrants to “Go home or face arrest”, and introducing ambitious surveillance legislation.

然而，梅在移民和公民权利领域都是鹰派人物，活动人士抨击她出台的某些政策，比如出动贴有警告非法移民“要么回家要么面临逮捕”招牌的厢式送货车在街上穿行，以及出炉雄心勃勃的监听法案。

Mrs May’s self-contained personality posed a challenge when she came to build a public profile. Although the media has been accused of sexism for reporting on her clothes, she has called her fashion choices “an icebreaker”, an easy way of grabbing column inches without courting controversy.

梅的矜持个性对打造公共形象构成挑战。尽管媒体因报道她的穿衣风格而被控性别歧视，但她将自己的时尚选择称为“破冰船”，可以轻易抢占专栏空间，而不会引起争议。

The first signs of Mrs May’s calculated fashion flair were the leopard-print heels she wore at the 2002 Conservative party conference, the time she warned the Tories that they were seen as “the nasty party”. It made her a moderniser years before Mr Cameron popularised such thinking.

首个体现梅精心策划时尚天赋的迹象是在2002年保守党大会上穿豹纹高跟鞋，当时她警告党内同僚称，他们被视为“肮脏的政党”。这让她成为保守党内的现代派，多年后卡梅伦才推动这种思路成为党内主流观念。

The government has a working majority of 16, and leading lights of Mr Cameron’s government are free to make trouble on the backbenches. Many of Mrs May’s fellow Remain supporters, meanwhile, worry about the power she has handed to Brexiters. She will need to deploy her steely leadership skills to steer her government and the country through extraordinary times.

本届保守党政府在议会拥有16席的多数席位，而且没有人阻止卡梅伦政府中的领先人物在后座制造麻烦。与此同时，梅的许多“留欧派”支持者担心她把太多权力交给“退欧派”。她将需要利用自己坚强的领导力技巧来带领政府和国家度过非常时期。