AN IRON law of British life these days is that, however bad things seem, the reality is worse. The recent budget sharply downgraded already-weak forecasts of economic growth. Real wages may not recover to pre-crisis levels until 2030. Now two new political books—“Betting The House: The Inside Story of the 2017 Election” by Tim Ross and Tom McTague, and “Fall Out: A Year of Political Mayhem” by Tim Shipman—demonstrate that the country’s politics are even more messed up than its economics. The books have slightly different focuses, the first limiting itself to the election while the second studies the wider aftermath of the Brexit vote. But they are both equally depressing.

The first illustration of the iron law is that however bad a politician Theresa May seems to be, the reality is worse. She is devoid of intellectual hinterland. Asked by aides who were preparing her for an interview to list her hobbies, she replied after some thought: “I do really like Sudoku.” She has little emotional intelligence. Confronted with a succession of national emergencies—the Manchester bombing, the London Bridge terrorist attack and the Grenfell Tower fire—she failed to show any human warmth.

And that’s just for starters

Mr Shipman notes that she has no “second gear”. Despite his laid-back style David Cameron, her predecessor, was capable of shifting up a gear under pressure. Mrs May is more likely to apply the brakes. Mr Shipman notes that “unexpected questions created a brief flicker in her eyes that combined fury and fear, something her aides called ‘the flash’.” Messrs Ross and McTague report that, when the election campaign started falling apart, Mrs May turned up at Conservative headquarters only to deliver a stump speech. “I couldn’t believe it,” one activist said. “This was the prime minister of the United Kingdom talking in the middle of an election to her own campaign staff and she couldn’t even hold the room. People were checking their phones.” Walter Bagehot, a 19th-century editor of The Economist, described Robert Peel, who repealed the Corn Laws and introduced an era of free trade, as a man of ordinary opinions and extraordinary abilities. Mrs May, who is leading negotiations which could be just as consequential for Britain’s future, is a woman of ordinary opinions and ordinary abilities, if that.

The second illustration of the iron law is that, however dysfunctional the Downing Street machine seems, the reality is still more chaotic. Britain has had a problem for some time with unelected aides who wield enormous power: think of Alastair Campbell’s relationship with Tony Blair. But the problem reached new levels with Mrs May’s government because of the combination of her personal fragility and the concentration of power in Downing Street after the Brexit vote. Insiders quoted in both books argue that Mrs May was almost “taken prisoner” by her co-chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill. Mr Timothy, a bearded intellectual, used her as a vehicle for his One Nation brand of Conservatism, which saw Brexit as a chance to refocus the party on people of modest means and conservative instincts. The “chiefs” exercised ruthless control over access to Mrs May and had a special office, called “the bollocking room”, for dressing down officials and even ministers.

Mr Shipman provides an astonishing series of quotes about life under the chiefs. One insider confided that Downing Street was “literally a shag-fest, with people drunk on power and living on the edge”. Another veteran said that he had not seen “worse behaviour from a senior aide in 25 years”. The chiefs publicly referred to Philip Hammond, the chancellor of the exchequer, as “the cunt”. They are thankfully gone, sacked (and, in Mr Timothy’s case, shorn) after the disastrous election. But the problem of Mrs May’s weak leadership remains. The cabinet is dominated by colourful personalities with passionate views on Brexit, while Downing Street is devoid of ideas.

The third illustration is that however feeble Britain’s defences against a hard-left government led by Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn seem, the reality is weaker. The most worrying thing about Mrs May is not that she is an aberration, but that she is the embodiment of today’s Conservative Party. Campaign managers calculated that the number of active Tory party members was about 50,000. In Brighton Kemptown, the local association consisted of little more than the candidate and his family. By contrast Labour has half a million active members, mostly young and fired up.

With its grassroots withering, the Tories have relied on highly paid advisers such as Lynton Crosby, an Australian, and Jim Messina, an American. But these hired guns have become out of touch. Mr Messina predicted that the Tories would win 470 seats, giving them a majority of 290. Mr Crosby relied on robotic messages (“Strong and stable”) and relentless micro-targeting (the Tories delivered 4,000 different messages to Facebook users). By contrast, Labour understood that weariness with the status quo and the empowerment of activists through social media had changed the rules of politics. Momentum, a pro-Corbyn pressure group, used ride-sharing apps to get activists to marginal seats. Its shareable videos were spread at almost no cost: one in three Facebook users saw Momentum ads, despite the fact that the group spent only £2,000 ($2,700) buying ads on the social network. The Tories will not have caught them up by the next election.

There are a few encouraging words in these two excellent books. The Conservative Party has some talented younger politicians, who combine political star power with an ability to relate to a changing nation. Mr Corbyn fell 60 seats short of winning a majority, despite the Tories’ disastrous campaign. But the message is glum. The next election is not only likely to put Mr Corbyn in Downing Street. It is also likely to put hard-left advisers such as Seumas Milne and Karie Murphy in the seats that were once occupied by Mrs May’s powerful, unaccountable “chiefs”.