Fictional Cold War warrior James Bond should be played by a woman, Theresa May has said, hailing the new female Doctor Who as a victory for “girl power”.

Speaking on a flight to Cyprus last week, where she gave a Christmas address to troops at RAF Akrotiri, the prime minister revealed she was a fan of the BBC science fiction show Doctor Who, and lauded the public broadcaster’s decision to cast Jodie Whittaker in the iconic time traveller’s role.

“I think it’s a great move forward for girl power that there is going to be a female Doctor Who. And one day there should be a female James Bond,” she told reporters.

May added she had heard that actor James Norton was tipped as the next actor likely to play the fictional spy and Royal Navy Commander created by writer Ian Fleming in 1953.

Famed for his womanising, hard drinking, and explosive action sequences, James Bond has been played by seven male actors, from Sean Connery to Daniel Craig since 1962.

Meanwhile, Doctor Who’s outgoing head writer Steven Moffat earlier this month revealed that Brexit voters delayed the protagonist’s gender swap, stating that he feared the change would alienate “Daily Mail-reading viewers”.

Appeaser Theresa Tells Small Businesses to Publish ‘Gender Pay Gap’ Data to ‘Improve Workplace Equality’ https://t.co/4b0jDjPYu1 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 28, 2017

“This isn’t a show exclusively for progressive liberals; this is also for people who voted Brexit. That’s not me politically at all – but we have to keep everyone on board,” he told the Radio Times.

Vanity Fair’s Joanna Robinson praised Moffat for pushing liberalism in the BBC show, stating that in his final episode, the writer brought Doctor Who to “the frontlines of the culture war”.

In the episode, David Bradley’s portrayal of the first Doctor “serve[d] as a reminder of how far the white male Doctors have come since the series began in 1963,” according to Robinson, who notes that the latest companion is “a lesbian of colour named Bill”.

As executive producer of the show last year, Moffat revealed that the role of Doctor Who had previously been offered to a black actor, and asserted that it would be “amazing” if neither the Doctor nor his sidekick were white.

The BBC figure also claimed that television producers have a responsibility to portray a “better” version of British history in which the country was populated with millions of non-white people.

“We’ve kind of got to tell a lie. We’ll go back into history and there will be black people where, historically, there wouldn’t have been, and we won’t dwell on that.

“We’ll say, ‘To hell with it, this is the imaginary, better version of the world. By believing in it, we’ll summon it forth’,” said Moffat, speaking to BBC journalists about positive discrimination.