I can't be 'outed'

We're standing in a warren of disused garages in the middle of a sprawling housing estate just north of the Euston underpass. There are two pairs of dirty pants on the floor, and the debris of the local drug addicts - needles, syringes and bits of tin foil. It's not the sort of place you'd expect to meet a glamorous, millionaire Tory politician, but Margot James is getting used to her new patch, the Holborn and St Pancras constituency where she will fight Labour MP Frank Dobson at the next general election. "Can you believe this?" she asks. "This is terrible."

Later, she says what every politician does at the beginning of their career: "I just want to make a difference." It's a cliché but I don't doubt the sentiment is genuine.

She has been in the running for only a week, but she has a tough fight on her hands. Frank Dobson has held the seat since 1979 and the previous Conservative candidate, Roseanne Serrelli - like James, another younger, good-looking blonde - trailed third behind the Liberal Democrats in the 2001 election. But, says James, that's all in the past; the Conservatives have changed.

It's a sign of this that she was selected at all, beating 40 rivals. She is the first openly lesbian Tory candidate. It would be mean (and wrong) to suggest she has got where she is on anything but merit, but if there was something deliberate in her selection, she is a choice of genius.

With impeccable Tory credentials - she is the privately educated daughter of a self-made man, and is herself a millionaire businesswoman - it's a bonus that she's attractive, warm and sparky.

She's 46 but looks 10 years younger and, with her highlighted hair, tailored suit and Prada handbag, she is probably the most glamorous politician around. Her sexual orientation - although she refuses to make an issue of it - gives her a cool edge. It wouldn't do the Tories any harm if she were paraded at every opportunity to show that Michael Howard's party really is all-inclusive.

Is she wary of being used in this way? "They wouldn't do that," she says. "I've had nothing but support from the party but there's no pressure on me to make it any more of an issue than I want to."

She isn't a militant campaigner for gay rights but is pleased that Michael Howard is supporting the same-sex civil partnerships bill and says she has never experienced any discrimination.

"I don't think it [homosexuality] is a big issue for our party," she says. "Labour are seen as the party with the most members who are homosexuals, women and from ethnic minorities, but at the next election, people will realise that we have a large number of candidates like that, too."

James lives in South Kensington with her partner, Jay Hunt, 38, a fashion stylist who appears on the television makeover show Would Like to Meet, and their black Labrador, Lotus ("I'm daft about dogs"). They met at a party seven years ago.

She is fiercely averse to talking about her private life. James won't, for instance, reveal when she first realised she was gay. "But I've never tried to hide it. You can't be outed if you're not trying to be undercover. I didn't want to be worried, looking over my shoulder the whole time. Why should I? It's who I am. It has taken me by surprise that people seem so interested in it. I don't like it, not at all."

They are a glamorous couple, but Hunt is no "Tory wife". A former TV producer, she has also worked on the television shows Hotter Sex and The Truth About Sex, and is about as far away from Norma Major as you can get. When James was going through the selection process, no reference was made to her partner, and Hunt didn't need to be vetted by the constituency association.

They don't attend political social events together, but this is not because James is wary of bringing her partner. "We both lead very busy lives and in rather different worlds. I'd love to take her to one but she's always too busy. But if it was important to me, I know she'd come. We do talk politics at home, but it's nice to have a partner who has nothing to do with the political world," says James.

"She gives me help with clothes. I'm not naturally interested in fashion and I think there's a tendency to find a look you're comfortable with when you're young and stick with it. But Jay is the reason that hasn't happened to me, so I'm very grateful."

It must be hard, as a woman in politics, to be judged on how you look when you're trying to be taken seriously. After all, who remembers much about Theresa May's contribution as chairman of the Conservatives other than her leopard-print shoes? "Yes, it is very unfair, but it's the same in so many walks of life."

Does she think women make better politicians? "No, not necessarily, but there aren't enough women in positions of power."

She is a bonus for the Conservatives, who are a long way from convincing the younger electorate that they're not as stuffy as they used to be. When I tell her I would consider voting for her, she looks as if she's about to hug me.

The death seven years ago of her

older sister, Angela, from a brain tumour, is perhaps why she sees no reason to waste time in fulfilling her ambitions.

"It's the sort of thing you never expect is going to happen in your family and I miss her very much," she says. "There was no hereditary link, no warning. It was completely random. For the last year of her life I helped my brother-in-law look after her. That was probably the most important year I've spent. It certainly puts life into perspective. When you've been through something like that you realise the things that matter."

She is very close to her two nephews, but has never had children herself. Did she not want to be a mother? "Not as strongly as other women. I never had that urge. I'm really close to my sister's children and maybe I would have wanted children more if it wasn't for them."

James joined the Conservative Party when she was 17 and resigned when Margaret Thatcher left. "I didn't like what happened to her. After winning three elections, to be forced out by a disloyal Cabinet was terrible. I was very angry about it. I resigned the next day. I didn't expect to be out of it for so long."

Throughout the years of infighting, she saw no incentive to return. She even considered joining Labour and remembers going to a party conference and listening to Tony Blair, then shadow home secretary.

"I thought he was young, dynamic and enthusiastic and was going to shake the Labour Party up. But I realised that the trade unions had such a grip. I thought, this isn't me."

She rejoined the Conservatives just over a year ago and put her name forward as a candidate. "It was just like turning a light on. I wish I'd done it earlier."

Her political leaning was cemented by her father, who left school at 14 and, after a spell playing snooker for money in the East End, returned to his home town of Coventry, where he set up a haulage business, later expanding into waste disposal and security divisions.

Despite all the trappings of a privileged upbringing, including a private education at Millfield school, Margot learned how to run a successful business-and saw first-hand the power of the trade unions, which she grew to despise. "My father tried to expand into the car-transporting business but it was a disaster because the trade unions had those businesses in a vice-like grip. You couldn't make any money. He nearly went bust in the early 1970s. That affected my political development greatly."

After reading economics and politics at the LSE, and working part-time as a research assistant for the MP Sir Anthony Durant, the desire to become a politician became firmly embedded in her mind.

"But I wanted to do something else first," she says. "If you go straight in from university, you spend your life trying to learn what life is about. It should be the other way around."

She went to France for two years, working in the wine industry. After an abortive attempt to become a wine merchant, she went to work for her father. "There was no glamour in it but it gave me a fantastic grounding in business," she says. When she was 26, James set up her own business, Shire Health Group, a pharmaceutical PR company; she sold it in 1999 for a reported £4 million, although she remains chairman.

Financially secure, she is now able to begin that second career. Her idol is still Margaret Thatcher, but she is very happy with Michael Howard. "Being leader of the opposition is a difficult job - not that I would mind it." She laughs.

Does she harbour dreams of becoming the next female leader of the Conservatives? "I can't even imagine it. At the moment I would like to do a great job here, although eventually I would like to focus on the criminal justice system. Why do we tolerate a situation in inner London where only 14 per cent of crimes result in a conviction? I'm not sure that being leader is the best way to tackle stuff like that."

So she would rather be Home Secretary? She grins.

The main issues she will be campaigning on, she says, are tackling drugs and crime. But can the people she hopes will vote for her next year take her seriously? After a hard day canvassing, carrying a Prada handbag which probably cost more than many of her constituents earn in a month, she goes home to Kensington.

"Neither of my parents had a privileged background. I am privileged but that means I have to make an extra effort to understand the issues that people face who aren't as lucky as me. I can't help my background, but I can help what I do with it."