Home Secretary Theresa May: No unwinnable seats

That steel flashes briefly as she is asked to consider a prospect she has absolutely no intention of entertaining - another coalition government.

The opinion polls are close. The Tories are not pulling ahead. Who would they do a deal with?

Mrs May's eyes narrow slightly at the thought as she says: "I'm working to get a majority Conservative government."

Then silence. The subject is over.

The Home Secretary has visited Wolverhampton to meet with city MP Paul Uppal, who is defending a slender majority of 691 but has come to the Express & Star 's offices.

Theresa May said she stood by a speech she gave in which she called for the corporation to think about the impact it was having in using its 'might' to threaten commercial publishers.

"I have had a bee in my bonnet for a while about the fact that when the BBC, with all its power and its resources, moves into a market it effectively pushes everyone else out of the market.

"And a few years ago I had a conversation with somebody very senior at the BBC, no longer there, but very senior who said 'no, no, you don't understand, we open up markets'.

"I said 'no, if you look at BBC Online, that kind of cornered the market'.

"So it has to look at this very carefully.

"It's funded by licence fee payers. They are not funding it to wipe out or undermine other forms of media."

Mrs May visited the Express & Star's head office in Queen Street alongside Wolverhampton South West MP Paul Uppal and went on a tour of the newsroom with editor Keith Harrison.

Last month the culture secretary Ed Vaizey visited Wolverhampton and hinted the BBC may have to do more to work with community radio stations following the renewal of its charter in 2016, but said he would 'dodge' any questions about it before then.

On a tour of Wolverhampton community radio station WCR FM he said: "We should recognise that community radio has been a big success. There are passionate people doing an amazing job." Asked about making the BBC work with stations he said: "That's a question I should probably dodge.

"The BBC has a charter that runs out at the end of 2016. We've said we will start the charter review after the election.

Mrs May dismisses a list that appeared briefly on the Conservative party website suggesting some seats such as Dudley South and Cannock Chase are 'non target', saying we should not believe everything we read on websites.

The Home Secretary also criticises Labour's deputy leader Harriet Harman for trying to reach out to women by touring the country in a pink minibus - a move that has been derided .

Mrs May says: "The issue is not whether you have a pink bus. It is what are the policies you are developing that speak to women that they are concerned about. The introduction of flexible parental leave, the significant increases in women on corporate boards and then a lot of work on violence against women and girls."

The Home Secretary has also been doing a lot of work around child sex abuse. She has been asked to look at accusations levelled against Colin Cope, the former headmaster of Tettenhall College, by two men who have waived their right to anonymity - Andrew Wood, aged 56, and Mark Shelton, 57.

There have been calls for a public inquiry into the allegations against the 83-year-old. Mr Cope has denied any wrongdoing. A court cases was stayed on grounds of his health and the length of time - 35 years - since the offences.

Mrs May first stresses there is no such thing as a 'historical' allegation of sexual abuse.

"It's not historical. It's child sex abuse that happened in the past because one of the messages that has come over very clear to me from survivors is they live with it day in and day out. For them, this isn't something that's done and passed into history.

"We've set up the child sex abuse inquiry.

"We'll be getting that fully up and running soon with survivors' voices heard. That will look at state and non state institutions and whether they met their duty of care. There were people whose job it was to care for children and protect them who were doing the opposite.

"The very simple question will be how did this happen and how can we stop this happening again?"

Mrs May defends proposals to close police station front desks across the West Midlands to save money.

In total, West Midlands Police will close 27 front offices, with more than 90 of the 170 jobs at risk. One of those will be Dudley's and more than 2,000 people have petitioned to keep it open.

Mrs May says: "It's an operational decision for the police as to how they deliver what they do.

"Police have to look at the way they deliver. They are transforming. There have been cuts in their budgets but crime is continuing to fall - a 17 per cent drop in the West Midlands.

"The issue may be police being available in another place rather than in a building with 'police' on it."

The Home Secretary was irritated by reports suggesting she did not want people to call 999 to report crimes as she spoke about a pilot scheme in Sussex and Surrey to report things online. Mrs May stresses that 999 would always be available.

"I was very frustrated with that headline. This was about more trivial crime. The emergency number is still there. It's expanding the ways people can do this."

If crime is coming down, then, have the concerns over the cuts, including £126m taken from the West Midlands force budget, been exaggerated?

"When I announced there would be cuts the overwhelming chorus from Labour and the Police Federation and the Association of Chief Police Officers was that this would lead to a rising crime. It hasn't. And it hasn't because out there police officers are working really hard to cut crime. And we should thank them for everything they do."