Theresa May arrived in Downing Street from the Home Office in July with a reputation for being risk averse. The party she leads as prime minister has a wafer-thin working majority in the House of Commons of 17.

As the opposition parties point out until they are blue in the face, she is an accidental prime minister with no general election mandate, who washed up at No 10 only as a result of the Brexit tsunami. Just over two months on, however, any suggestion that May would cautiously wield the power suddenly thrust upon her, easing her way in before making her mark, has been dispelled.

Her ruthless cabinet purge of David Cameron’s inner circle in her first days in charge has been followed by a systematic re-examination of Cameroonian policies. Michael Gove’s prison reforms are on hold. George Osborne’s deficit-cutting plans have been ditched, signalling more state investment and an end to austerity.

The former chancellor’s northern powerhouse ideas are being subsumed into a wider national regeneration strategy. Bold plans for tackling obesity have been watered down. Tory housing policy, so long focused on home ownership, is to be recast with more emphasis on helping those in the rented sector. Most controversially of all, May wants to expand the number of grammar schools, something opposed by Cameron and that was never on the radar of his reforming former education secretary Michael Gove, cast by May into outer darkness on day one of her premiership.

The new prime minister’s approach has, in some respects, seemed to court risk rather than avoid it. Tory MPs loyal to the old order, and those dismissed from government by May, feel bruised and talk carefully but deliberately, in code. “Bold to say the least,” said one sacked minister last week, raising his eyebrows and adding that he was “one of a lot of people who she needs to vote with her on things”.

On Monday in the Commons, the new education secretary, Justine Greening, gave details of the prime minister’s grammar school revolution. “We do not want to see a return to the old binary system of good schools and bad schools,” she said. “Every child deserves a place in a great …” The Speaker had to intervene as the opposition benches erupted, asking where her mandate for more grammar schools was. Labour’s Angela Rayner said, to cheers from opposition benches, that the new Tory agenda was one of “segregation, segregation, segregation”.

Then Tory doubters spoke out one after another. First to his feet was former Tory education secretary Kenneth Clarke, who asked Greening to make sure that “this change does not damage the opportunities for pupils in other schools and does not distract priority from raising the standards of all schools for all pupils which has been the objective of this government”.

Nicky Morgan, sacked by May as education secretary, voiced her worries, as did the normally restrained Tory chair of the education select committee, Neil Carmichael. “There is no desire in my constituency for us to have selection,” said another dismissed minister, Anna Soubry, before former Northern Ireland secretary Theresa Villiers weighed in. Labour’s Lucy Powell and Nic Dakin counted the seconds between each Tory member saying how much they welcomed Greening’s desire to widen opportunity and the moment they said “but”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest David Cameron said he was stepping down as an MP to avoid being a “distraction”. Photograph: Jack Taylor/Getty Images

On any other day, Greening’s difficulties would have made big headlines. As it was, David Cameron chose Monday to announce that he was standing down as an MP. The former PM insisted that he was not going in a huff because May was trashing his policies but because he did not want to be a “distraction”. May had “got off to a cracking start”, he said.

Two months into her premiership, Theresa May’s poll ratings remain in honeymoon territory. She is seen by most voters as a reassuring presence and a strong and competent leader, while the ratings for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn are dire. She is also seen as slightly less rightwing than Cameron, and her chancellor, Philip Hammond, as a little to the left of his predecessor Osborne.

Before she entered Downing Street for the first time on 13 July, May said her government would not be driven “by the interests of the privileged few” but by those who had had little or none. “We will do everything we can to give you more control over your lives. When we take the big calls, we’ll think not of the powerful, but you. When we pass new laws we’ll listen not to the mighty, but to you. When it comes to taxes, we’ll prioritise not the wealthy but you.” She was clear, then, that the days of government by the “Notting Hill set” were over. But few expected her to move so fast and so boldly. Her supporters insist that a clear theme to her leadership is already emerging, much of it shaped by her chief of staff, the pro-grammar school Nick Timothy.

Unlike the Cameron inner circle, from which May felt excluded, they say she wants not just to show that she cares about “the bottom 10%, but all those who deserve a chance”. One ally said: “To her, the northern powerhouse looked like a gesture, like it was just about being generous to the north. She wants to prioritise the whole country. If you understand that, you begin to understand her.”

Writing on these pages, Phillip Blond, the inventor of one-nation red-Toryism who became disillusioned with Cameron, says May is developing a new post-liberal Conservatism that challenges the idea of so much power and wealth being concentrated in the hands of the elite. For Blond and other “communitarian” conservative thinkers, the hope is that the May era will herald an end to laissez-faire economics and usher in an era of proactive government, dedicated to building a more inclusive society. Quite how her approach to grammar schools will help all children, however, is a question being asked by far more Tory MPs than are needed to kill her flagship education plan stone dead in the Commons. The Cameroons are not happy and joke that her biggest achievement in office so far has been to unite Labour over grammar schools in a way it could not have managed itself.

Meanwhile, Osborne has launched an organisation to reboot the northern powerhouse idea. Last week, at an event hosted by the pollsters Opinium and the Social Market Foundation, Nicky Morgan suggested May would lack the appeal to centre-ground voters that Cameron had.

With Brexit to deal with, a majority of 17 and no direct mandate of her own, Theresa May may soon realise the downside of taking risks.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest George Osborne’s plan to abolish the deficit was among the first Cameron policy to be jettisoned. Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images

CAMERON REFORMS BEING REVERSED

THE DEFICIT

The Tory election manifesto in May 2015 was clear: “The way to keep our economy secure for the future is to eliminate the deficit entirely and start running a surplus. Anything less would be to ignore the lessons of the past.” Then came Brexit, out went David Cameron and George Osborne and all that changed. Even before becoming leader, Theresa May said she would no longer seek to reach a budget surplus by 2020, abandoning Osborne’s pledge to more than balance the books by the next election. In July, his successor as chancellor, Phillip Hammond, went further, saying his first autumn statement would be a chance to “reset fiscal policy”. The statement is expected to mark an end to austerity – with which Osborne will always be associated – and usher in an era of more state investment to boost the economy, improve infrastructure and create jobs.

NORTHERN POWERHOUSE

On Friday, Osborne said May’s government had had “a wobble” on his plans for a northern powerhouse. But he claimed through gritted teeth that it was now “100% committed”. However, that overstated the reality. May made it clear on entering No 10 that she wanted a broader, nationwide industrial strategy rather than merely a “northern” one – an approach that covered the whole country. Initially, she even seemed reluctant to use the term “northern powerhouse”, reflecting her clear reservations and suggesting that she thought it was a something of a stunt. To keep the flame of the policy, which he launched in 2014, very much alive Osborne announced on Friday that he would chair a new organisation to advance the plans, including greater devolution of powers.

OBESITY

May’s government has come under fire from the BMA, the Tory chair of the health select committee, Dr Sarah Wollaston, and celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver, for watering down plans for an ambitious anti-obesity strategy. Professor Parveen Kumar, chair of the BMA’s board of science, said the government had “rowed back on its promises by announcing what looks like a weak plan, rather than the robust strategy it promised”. Given concerns that NHS bills are soaring as a result of obesity, the government left itself open to attack. It said food companies would not be compelled to reduce levels of sugar in products but would be subject to voluntary targets. Kumar said this approach would be “pointless”. Wollaston said the plans showed “the hand of big industry lobbyists”. Ministers said the plans, including a voluntary target to cut sugar in children’s food and drink, were bold and announced new measures to try to expand sporting provision in primary schools.

GRAMMAR SCHOOLS

David Cameron said in 2006 that he did not want a return to selection. “The prospect of bringing back grammar schools has always been wrong and I’ve never supported it. And I don’t think any Conservative government would have done it.” Instead, his administration sought to raise standards across the state sector by increasing school autonomy through the expansion of academies and Michael Gove’s free schools project. May changed tack unexpectedly, prompting a huge row and raising concerns among many of her MPs. “For too long, we have tolerated a system that contains an arbitrary rule preventing selective schools from being established – sacrificing children’s potential because of dogma and ideology,” she said. “The truth is that we already have selection in our school system – and it’s selection by house price, selection by wealth. That is simply unfair.”

HOUSING

May’s housing minister, Gavin Barwell, hinted strongly in a speech that the government would shift its focus from home ownership to helping those in the rented sector. “We need to build more homes of every single type and not focus on one single tenure,” he said in terms that were seen in the housing industry as softening it up for a change of direction. Barwell appeared to recognise that many of those most in need are renters, who desire more security and protection. He also suggested that the government could ditch plans to build 200,000 “starter homes” by 2020 – a plan that has been widely criticised on the grounds that such homes, although supposedly for those on low incomes, would turn out to be unaffordable for the less well off.

PRISON REFORMS

The new justice secretary, Liz Truss, threw Gove’s plans for sweeping reforms of prisons in England and Wales into huge doubt within weeks of entering office. Under Gove’s plans, prisons would have gained more control over budgets and how they were run. Truss said she was “not committing” to such legislation. The Ministry of Justice insisted it was still “totally committed” to prison reform although what emerges is likely to be Truss’s blueprint. She told the Commons justice committee that she wanted to speed up the pace of change, including giving governors greater autonomy, as Gove suggested, but was looking at the “overall system”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Phillip Blond Photograph: Stephane Grangier - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

WHAT THE ANALYSTS SAY

PHILLIP BLOND, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRE-RIGHT RESPUBLICA THINKTANK

To chart the direction of the Conservative party under Theresa May, one need only point out the differences between her and David Cameron.

Cameron unfortunately (and despite the early PR) turned out to be quite conventional. He was both an economic liberal and a social liberal, whereas I suspect May is neither. This does not make her a reactionary, but potentially somebody who can be revolutionary and can create a transformative and good post-liberal politics.

Across the west, the failure of the liberal elite (both left and right) to recognise the damage liberalism has wrought has provoked all manner of reactionary politics, from Trump in the US to Le Pen in France. Yet we have failed to identify the cause – ever more extreme liberalism. On liberalism’s watch, we have seen a massive concentration of wealth and power; whereas socially, we have witnessed the dismissal and humiliation of working-class people, coupled with the mindless endorsement of mass migration, as if we could replace the servile class with those more compliant. Unless we develop a non-regressive form of politics, the future promises to be more primitive and inhabited by racists, nationalists and perhaps fascists, because the conventional centre is empty, outmoded and has nothing to offer.

That is why I have great hopes for May – she has the right targets and doesn’t believe in old solutions. From recognising that infrastructure such as Hinkley Point shouldn’t just go to the highest bidder but that government should retain a veto, to the idea that the poor, like the middle class, should have access to excellent schools.

Expect more of the same, from mutualising infrastructure such as railways, to creating assets and savings for working people. I can also imagine her remodelling migration on the basis of shared values and integration, so as to draw its poison and keep Britain open to the world. In short, May is post-liberal, and that could be the most progressive politics we have had in decades.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest David Green Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

DAVID GREEN, DIRECTOR OF THE CIVITAS THINKTANK

Is Mayism different? Thatcherism was dominated by the view that freedom was the absence of government, which implied reducing the scope of the state by deregulating and privatising.

For Mayism, freedom is a political achievement. If everyone is to have a share in prosperity, then it requires active government, not least in the form of a “proper industrial strategy”.

Cameronism was more about image building than problem solving. Putting forward policy ideas under him might have got the reaction: “That’s a good line, I can use that in a speech.” Not so now. Mayism is different because it recognises that globalisation has not delivered for everyone. During the EU debate, Tories such as Boris Johnson criticised globalisation as manifested in the “four freedoms” of the EU. They have little to do with personal freedom. Rather, they are the doctrines of laissez-faire economics, which lumps together four different things. Goods and services are produced with buying and selling in mind; but labour and money are not primarily commodities.

Gordon Brown used to argue that the free movement of labour was counter-inflationary, which could only be the result of lowering wages. Now Theresa May defines the lowering of wages as a problem. Too much immigration makes it harder for people to make ends meet and achieve their personal best.

The unexpected commitment to grammar schools comes from the same philosophical root. To be free is to be able to develop your talents to the full, but active government is needed to give everyone a fighting chance.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ayesha Hazarika Photograph: sent by her

AYESHA HAZARIKA, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND FORMER ADVISER TO HARRIET HARMAN AND ED MILIBAND

Theresa May is no novice. She may have arrived at the top job by accident, but she has had a ringside seat at the top of politics for more than a decade.

Although everyone, including George Osborne, is up in arms about the return of grammars and, let’s be honest, secondary moderns – there is some method in her madness.

She is normally an evidence-based cautious politician, yet has jumped headlong into this row with verve and enthusiasm. Why? The obvious reason is because she is trying to put clear water between her and Cameron. But there is more to it than that.She will know how critical the first big moments are for a new prime minister. Your first words on the steps of Downing Street. Your first PMQs. Your first hires and fires. And critically, your first fight.

She knows the grammar school row will not be easy. Many on her own side hate it. The Lords will make serious trouble and it even unites the Labour party. But she knows that grassroots supporters and wavering Ukip voters, who may come back to the Tories, will see a fight for something which feels true blue, nostalgic, populist and bold.

But she should beware. As her predecessor discovered, what starts as scratching an ideological itch can end up being a fatal political wound.