There is usually a gap between how politicians are perceived by the public and the way they are in private. In the case of Theresa May there is no gap. There is a chasm. She has a reputation for being cold, remote and robotic but also as a politician who got things done.

The disastrous general election result for the Tories is now universally thought to have been the consequence of May’s catastrophically bad campaign. She made herself the centre of the Conservatives’ pitch to the voters. That was an appalling misjudgment: she should surely have known that she had neither the temperament nor the personality to be the focus of any campaign.

The more voters got to know her, the less they liked her.