Question: Why has the party hired an occupational psychologist?

Theresa May: As ever, when it was reported it didn't reflect the entire position. The point about this is she's actually been working for us for some months now. She didn't come in to improve the gender balance. What she did was to come in to look at the assessment process that we used to assess the people who were coming to us and saying 'we would like to become a Conservative MP'.

We go through a process of deciding whether they are suitable and then they go on our candidates list. We've always had a process. We used to call it the candidates' weekend where you went away for a weekend and did various exercises to see how you would cope with a mock-up surgery, a paper exercise such as dealing with constituents' letters and speaking in a debate.

What Jo Silvester has done is looked at that process, talked to MPs and others about the skills that an MP needs and came up with a much more vigorous, in fact a much shorter, assessment model which specifically marked people against six competencies.

Question: What are they?

Theresa May: Communication skills, intellectual skills, relating to people, leading and motivating, resilience and drive plus political conviction. They're the core skills that from her discussions it was agreed an MP needed.

People are marked against those; they do different things to bring out those skills and you get a picture of a rounded individual. In any group of people some will be stronger at some things than others but you're looking at the overall score, whether they've got a combination of things because there will be some areas that training can develop.

Question: The job of an MP is a very unique role. How do you train for something like that?

Theresa May: Well you can train people in particular skills. For example: if some is very strong on all the other things but isn't very good at public speaking you can work on that. If they're not so good on some of the campaigning skills you can train people for those.

Now obviously you can't train people to have political conviction or resilience and drive. Even on motivating - some people are natural motivators - there are management techniques you can use when you're working with a group of people to motivate them.

Question: There are some professions that dominate the people who are MPs such as barristers, bankers and journalists. How do you get away from that?

Theresa May: It's very difficult. This is one of the issues that we are addressing in this selection process - getting a greater diversity across the board. It's not just about getting more women and people from ethnic minorities.

Partly it's about encouraging people to come forward and showing that people from different backgrounds can actually do the job.

Barristers have tended to dominate; there have been a large number of them in the Commons over the years. These are people who are very skilled at speaking in public, at making a case and, interestingly, assessing an argument very quickly.

What's particularly good about the assessment board - because of what Jo's done with our candidates department - is that it is looking at a greater range of skills than traditionally were seen as the ones that were needed.

Question: How is this going to get over the barrier of local constituency parties? Would this lead to a bias against local candidates?

Theresa May: This is still the issue that we have to address. We've made some progress and we've been working with constituency associations. Paradoxically, if I can just comment on your example, I think it's often harder to be selected as a local person than it is as somebody who comes in. People can have opposition from other local members to overcome.

One of the key things is to work with our association members to show them that first the job of an MP has changed. If you've got a safe Conservative seat for example - I tend not to use that word safe as no politician should be complacent ever - but where there's a long-standing MP that hasn't selected for say 20 years, then you have to point out that during that period the job has changed significantly.

Question: How has the job changed?

Theresa May: It's become much more campaign-focused. The old idea that the whole focus was on Westminster and there were things that you did in the constituency is wrong. Those days are gone.

Constituents expect more from their MP, which is a good thing. For us it means making sure that everyone in the party who is doing the selecting realises that is the case and isn't looking at their potential MP in terms of how they will interact just with the members of the association; how they come across at a Sunday drinks party.

Question: Are you expecting resistance to the changes you want to make; selection is the last bastion of power for some people?

Theresa May: You're right. The constituency associations jealously guard their right to select their MP. And we're not suggesting imposing anybody on any association. What we are doing is looking at what's happened in the first 60 seats and see how the process has worked and trying, in line with taking this more business-like approach, and analysing what's happened. We're also saying 'let's have a look at all of the various ideas that are around' to address the ideas of getting better gender balance and then we'll look to see if any changes need to be made.

Just one thing to clarify. A story ran that we had suspended the selection process because of the woman thing which isn't true. The previous chairman said last year that we would set the tranche of seats to select and then there would be a reassessment and we'd set a new timetable for the next tranche. In fact last year we said there wouldn't be a tranche of seats in the run up to the May elections. We'd leave that clear for people to campaign.

Question: Do you think there's a problem with the media interpreting policy changes as continuing problems and senior figures setting out leadership bids?

Theresa May: Obviously it's frustrating to anybody when they have a story or a policy they want to get across or an issue they want to comment on and it gets distorted in the telling in the media.

What we have to do is if somebody really does dramatically distort something. Yesterday we spoke to the BBC about the claim we'd suspended selection and they backed off of that particular headline.

There is an issue about the person reading the newspaper who assumes that, although they have got some scepticism about the newspapers, if the reporter writes that somebody's interview is part of a leadership bid, that there's probably an element truth in it. In fact it might be a particular newspaper having a particular agenda to promote somebody or to try and create a bit of havoc.

Question: Did you experience sexism when you were trying to find a seat?

Theresa May: I personally didn't but I know colleagues who did. Someone was asked 'will your husband be available to attend coffee mornings?' They assumed that if it was a male MP his wife would be expected to attend. That's quite interesting because it portrays another problem for the selection committees which is that we are an elderly party.

It's not only the case that with the woman before them obviously the husband or partner won't be attending coffee mornings but increasingly if they've got a male MP, his wife or partner probably works and won't be there to do the traditional things that an MP's wife has done in the past. We're really trying to change the mindset.

Question: You want more women to become Tory MPs so isn't it annoying that the thing that's most reported about you are your shoes?

Theresa May: I'll tell a story about that. I met the designer of my conference shoes back in November and I e-mailed her after the New Year to let her know they were still making it into the reviews of 2002. She mailed me back to say she was on holiday in Thailand and saw them on TV as part of Sky's coverage.

Did I mind? No. To be fair to the papers, they reported the speech as well and it's just the lighter side of politics. There will be people out there who have an idea that something was said at the Conservative Party conference which was significant. If the papers had just reported the speech they probably wouldn't have picked up on it.

Question: Are they a trademark like Margaret Thatcher's famous handbag?

Theresa May: Well I certainly didn't do it to create a trademark. Although I do still get people, like in the supermarket queue the other day, who say 'I'm glad to see you're wearing the shoes'. I feel very bad when I wear a boring pair of shoes.

Question: Would Edwina Curry's revelations put women off politics?

Theresa May: I don't think that would have put women off of coming forward. I think it had an impact on people's image of the party because it reminded them of a past era.

The issue for us as a party is to talk about the issues that matter to women and be a party in which women can succeed. Although we were the party to have the first woman prime minister, because there are so few women MPs in the party, women sometimes think it is very difficult for them to get through. I think some women are put off because they think if they go through the process they're just going to get rejected.

Question: What benefit is there for a young person in joining a political party?

Theresa May: If I can answer that slightly obtusely. One of the things we need to look at is that people these days - and young people more specifically - are not as committed to the idea of becoming a member of a political party. They're often more interested in campaigning on a single issue.

Talking to young people, like at a sixth form in my constituency a couple of weeks ago, this is what they are saying. So I think political parties hoping to appeal to young people have to think through how we campaign on issues.

What is the benefit of being involved in politics as a member or in some other aspect, I think it gives you a real opportunity to make a difference to the future of your country and your own life.

Question: Was there ever a typical Conservative voter in the past?

Theresa May: No I think there's always been a broad cross-section of people who voted Conservative. What typified people is a belief in individual freedom. A belief that the state shouldn't be running people's life, that they should be able to make decisions for themselves and their families to get on but there's a safety net for those that are in need.

Question: What has been the problem? Did the party move away from those beliefs or did voters change their support?

Theresa May: I think this was due to a number of things. The reason we lost in 1997 is a whole combination of things. One of the reasons was very simple; that we'd been in government for a very long time. There was an innate sense of fairness in giving the other lot another chance. There were people who thought that as a party we hadn't been giving enough attention to vulnerable people who were in need of that safety net of the state.

As I said at conference we had got away from that side of what we in the party know is about core Conservatism; helping others, working in the community and helping those in need. Perhaps the way we'd addressed our problems with the tones and language we used had shown a different face.

Question: Have the recent calls for asylum seekers to be locked up and fire fighters being branded idiots been a return of the nasty party?

Theresa May: I have no regrets about saying that people have described us in the past as the nasty party. I think language is important but often in politics its important that there will be times when a very deeply-held view is there and it will be important to express that. We mustn't feel constrained because people will use the phrase back on us the party chairman used. There's nothing wrong with being robust in politics.

Question: You've talked about the idea of consumer politics. Is this Duncan Smithism?

Theresa May: I hesitate on 'isms' that are attached to individuals. I think the only 'ism' that matters for the party is Conservatism.

We are living in a new political environment. I think what's happened is this: when we were in government we did an enormous amount to encourage a more consumerist approach to people. Just generally in their approach to a lot of things but particularly in their approach to public services. People should be questioning the level of service they were getting from their services.

We encouraged that but what we failed to address was the fact that actually having become more consumerist in their general approach, people also became more consumerist about their politics and politicians.

What I mean is that people are more interested in what politicians are going to offer them. What are you going to do for me? This is my problem, what are you going to do about it?

Even 10 years ago you would get a lot of people at election time saying 'yes I'm voting Conservative' or 'my parents voted Labour so I'm voting Labour'. You don't hear those sort of statements very frequently these days. Younger people are more consumerist and are saying what is it that you offer as a party?

Question: People have become more brand conscious with things like trainers and clothes. Do you think the brand-value of a political party has become important and has the Conservative brand suffered?

Theresa May: Again I hesitate to use the term brand but what I think we do need to do is show people what the 'brand' really is. To show them what Conservatism really is about and what it means.

What did become a problem with 'the brand' was that people thought we were out of touch. That was another part of the complexity of issues that affected our election results in 1997 - and to some extent still in 2001. People still felt we were out of touch with what mattered to most people most of the time.

You're making me think now though about the idea that we could perhaps make the Conservative logo something that people would want to wear on their T-shirts.

Question: You have referred to the era of Sir Keith Joseph and the change in ideology when the Conservatives were last in opposition. Is the party at the same point now?

Theresa May: I don't know about the ideological shift. I think what was important about that time with Sir Keith Joseph was that it was a real generation of ideas and that opportunity was taken.

There is one big area where we are changing the nature of debate and that is public services. The debate traditionally has been about how much money you spend on them. It's always been 'are you going to spend as much as the other lot'.

What we've after nearly six years of Labour is that it's not just about how much money you spend but how you spend it. This is why we really do believe that we need the reform of public services.

We spend the EU average of GDP in Scotland and Wales and yet the outcomes are worse than the rest of England.

There's a real need to get this debate going - and it's just starting.

Question: What timescale do you have for seeing changes in public opinion?

Theresa May: The path we're set on is being a credible alternative government and people seeing that at the next election. There's a steady course through to that. I can't say at such-and-such a point in time suddenly everyone will be saying there's a new debate on public services because it's a slow process.

Question: You've also highlighted the role of John F Kennedy in US politics. Was he a figure of inspiration?

Theresa May: No, not particularly and I'm not the sort of person to have a role model in that sense. I was referring to him because he was somebody who inspired a generation of people who looked to him.

There's debates to be had about what John F Kennedy actually did but he was a figure of inspiration who many people looked up to and felt that he represented something new in politics.

Question: Is that what you would like to recreate?

Theresa May: Yes. There is an issue in politics today across the board - this isn't a party political issue - of apathy about voting and cynicism about politicians. There's a real need to be able to generate that sort of enthusiasm for politicians and a recognition that politicians do make a difference. You asked me about the importance of young getting involved in politics. I think it's about making a difference. If you sit on the sidelines and don't contribute you can't influence what happens.