CLASS NOTES

The history of Aston Villa Football Club since 1961 includes a European Cup victory in 1982
and a loss in the 2018 English Football League Championship play-off Final. After a change of
ownership and management for the club and successive relegations, they returned in the 1971–
72 season to the Second Division as champions with a record 70 points. In 1974 Ron
Saunders was appointed manager, and by 1975 he had led the club back into the First Division
and into European competition. The club won the league in the 1980–81 season, and
the European Cup final in the next season. They were one of the founding members of
the Premier League in 1992, and finished runners-up to Manchester Unitedin the inaugural
season. They reached the FA Cup Final for the first time since 1957 in 2000. The arrival of a new
manager and Randy Lerner as owner in 2006 marked the start of sweeping changes throughout
the club.

May grew up in Oxfordshire and attended St Hugh's College, Oxford. After graduating in 1977,
she worked for the Bank of England. She also served as a councillor for Durnsford in Merton.
After two unsuccessful attempts to be elected to the House of Commons, she was elected as the
MP for Maidenhead in 1997. From 1999 to 2010, May held a number of roles in Shadow
Cabinets. She was also Chairwoman of the Conservative Party from 2002 to 2003. When
the coalition government was formed after the 2010 general election, May was appointed Home
Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities, but gave up the latter role in 2012. She
continued to serve as home secretary after the Conservative victory in the 2015 general election,
and became the longest-serving home secretary in over 60 years. During her tenure she pursued
reform of the Police Federation, implemented a harder line on drugs policy including the banning
of khat, oversaw the introduction of elected Police and Crime Commissioners, the deportation
of Abu Qatada, and the creation of the National Crime Agency, and brought in additional
restrictions on immigration.[3] She is to date, the only woman to hold two of the Great Offices of
State.

Having entered Parliament, May became a member of William Hague's front-

bench Opposition team, as Shadow Spokesman for Schools, Disabled People and Women
(1998–1999). She became the first of the 1997 MPs to enter the Shadow Cabinet when in 1999
she was appointed Shadow Education and Employment Secretary. After the 2001 election the
new Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith kept her in the Shadow Cabinet, moving her to the
Transport portfolio.
May was appointed the first female Chairman of the Conservative Party in July 2002. During her
speech at the 2002 Conservative Party Conference, she explained why, in her view, her party
must change: "You know what people call us? The Nasty Party.[32][33] In recent years a number of
politicians have behaved disgracefully and then com pounded their offences by trying to evade
responsibility. We all know who they are. Let's face it, some of them have stood on this platform."
She accused some unnamed colleagues of trying to "make political capital out of demonising
minorities", and charged others with indulging themselves "in petty feuding or sniping instead of
getting behind a leader who is doing an enormous amount to change a party which has suffered
two landslide defeats". She admitted that constituency selection committees seemed to prefer
candidates they would "be happy to have a drink with on a Sunday morning", continuing to say,
"At the last general election 38 new Tory MPs were elected. Of that total only one was a woman
and none was from an ethnic minority. Is that fair? Is one half of the population entitled to only
one place out of 38?"[34]
In 2003, May was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Transport and the
Environment after Michael Howard's election as Conservative Party and Opposition Leader in
November that year.[35]
In June 2004, she was moved to become Shadow Secretary of State for the Family. Following
the 2005 general election she was also made Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and
Sport. David Cameron appointed her Shadow Leader of the House of Commons in December
2005 after his accession to the leadership. In January 2009, May was made Shadow Secretary
of State for Work and Pensions.
On 6 May 2010, May was re-elected MP for Maidenhead with an increased majority of 16,769 –
60% of the vote. This followed an earlier failed attempt to unseat her in 2005 as one of the
Liberal Democrats' leading "decapitation-strategy" targets.[36]