Several sources interviewed for this book described May as a ‘captive’ or ‘prisoner’ of the chiefs. Early in 2017, Boris Johnson returned to the Foreign Office after a meeting with May in which the chiefs had been particularly assertive and made a reference to Hill’s signature policy: ‘That’s modern slavery, right there.’6 Others compared them to a dysfunctional family. One senior figure in Number 10 said, ‘I feel disloyal saying this, but she was made to feel she couldn’t do without them. She genuinely loves them. I think they’re the children she didn’t have.
