If Theresa May is celebrating the anniversary of her first year in office, I doubt there’ll be many joining her.

In that short span, she’s secured for herself the title of worst PM of the 21st century, and she’s making a rapid rise up the table of the worst in British history.

The decision she made at the G20 speaks volumes. As other leading nations were preparing to tackle President Donald Trump over his decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change, May decided that the greatest threat facing humanity (ask the insurance industry if you don’t believe me) was “not a priority”. After all her talk of intergenerational fairness, she cast the future of the nation’s children on to the fires of political expediency in an attempt to cosy up to the brute in the White House.

Britain under May is, it seems, destined to become an angry polluting boil on the backside of Europe.

Theresa May on Paris agreement and Donald Trump's state visit

However, what’s truly horrifying is this: if you cast an eye over the betting for who might replace her, you’ll soon come to the realisation that it could get a lot worse. That boil could quickly turn into a festering sore. But bear with me. There might be some soothing salve on its way from the pharmacist.

We’ll get the bad news out of the way first.

I should note that it is early days yet. There’s not yet a genuine contest in the offing. As such, and with British politics in a state of high volatility, the current betting has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

However, take a cursory glance at the potential field and you’ll realise that the lineup for a selling hurdle on a wet Wednesday at Uttoxeter looks like a high quality contest by comparison.

Your 4-1 best priced favourite is David Davis. This is a man who, remember, went nought for three as the Brexit negotiations opened. The only country he and his colleagues seem to like is Trump’s America. So I’ll use one of its sporting metaphors to describe his performance: he struck out.

A prickly contrarian, he keeps threatening to sail Britain off into the North Sea without a deal and without his department having properly studied the impact such a move might have. Clue: It wouldn’t be good.

There is a reason countries, and the EU, prefer deals to trying to trade under WTO rules as Davis suggests Britain might end up resorting to. Trump’s recklessness on Twitter looks positively mild by comparison. If he is the favourite to be the next Tory leader, and potentially, the next Prime Minister, heaven help us. Here’s hoping he’s a faller (you’ll see a lot of them in selling hurdles), as he was when he lined up against David Cameron.

Appalling though the prospect of Davis may be, he is far from being the worst option.

The next two Brexiteer candidates should prompt Captain Ska to revisit their BBC banned hit “Liar Liar” if one of them gets in. Both of them were pictured alongside that infamous “£350m a week extra for the NHS” Brexit bus.

Boris Johnson admits it didn't look good for Theresa May on the morning after the election

Lining up at 6-1, it’s that bumbling, bumptious, blond bombshell Boris Johnson, a man whose ego and sense of entitlement appear such that he’s after becoming leader because he thinks he deserves it.

A disastrous interview all but saw Diane Abbott evicted from Labour’s election campaign. She’d been grappling with the early stages of diabetes. Boris, however, can offer no such explanation for the crash that occurred when he encountered the BBC’s Eddie Mair. Despite coming off as an incompetent buffoon, he was able to brush it off because he’s white, male and some people mistakenly find him charming. They’re thus willing to overlook the fact that there doesn’t appear to be a principle he wouldn't sacrifice in pursuit of his goal.

This is the man, remember, who won the mayoralty of London, a Labour city, by portraying himself as a liberal Tory, at home with the capital’s values of openness, tolerance, and cultural diversity, only to turn himself into the scion of the Europhobic right when it suited his purposes. And don’t even get me started on the controversies of his past.

It’s his alleged charisma that keeps him in the game, and the belief among some Tories that voters will be willing to overlook his many failings because he somehow manages to “connect” with them. He would lead them, and us, down a dark road.

The man who stood next to him in front of that bus first supported and then betrayed him. Michael Gove, 25-1, also betrayed his former friend Cameron over the Brexit vote. Pity Britain if he comes up on the rails.

As for the other Euro-haters, swooned over by the reptilian right, Jacob Rees-Mogg, a latter day Brideshead who stands up in his bath when the national anthem comes on, could scarcely be more out of touch with modern Britain. Yet he’s a 16-1 shot amid talk of Mogg-mentum. There’ll have to be a steward’s inquiry if he gets anywhere near No 10.

Is he the comic relief or is it Andrea Leadsom, a 50-1 shot who managed to make May look good when they squared off and is still being talked up in some Tory newspapers?

So to the semi-sane wing of the party, and Amber Rudd. A supposed moderate at a best priced 10-1, we oughtn’t to forget her shockingly illiberal (and swiftly shelved) proposal to force firms to keep registers of foreign workers.

Out She also now boasts only a tiny majority, having come close to losing her seat in the last election.

Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson has been anointed as a star: a modern, socially liberal Conservative who could save the party from itself and go on to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup. If only she had a Westminster seat from which to do that.

I don’t know about you, but I think even 25-1 is too short a price for May’s mate Damian Green.

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Any more for any more? Sajid Javid, James Brokenshire, Dominic Raab, you can back them all if you want.

Which brings me to the one candidate who has a couple of traits that the chamber of horrors I’ve profiled all seem to lack: credibility and competence.

I am talking, of course, about Philip Hammond. The Chancellor, at a best priced 5-1, is the second favourite. Businesses would be positively jumping for joy if he somehow justified those odds, because he appears to be the only Tory who still listens to the sort of people who are usually its best friends. He might start to gain some momentum with the country at large if he were to properly realise austerity is a busted flush.

The problem with him is that he’s basically Theresa 2.0. Installing Hammond as Tory leader would be like the party updating its computer operating system. After its bedded down, things should work a bit better with some of the bugs ironed out. Hammond is less robotic, and more personable, than his current boss. Trouble is, he’s had same charisma bypass op. Could you imagine Philip Hammond successfully handling the Grenfell tragedy? Could you see him emoting with the victims?

Theresa May in quotes Show all 10 1 /10 Theresa May in quotes Theresa May in quotes On being described by the former chancellor Ken Clarke as “a bloody difficult woman”: “Politics could do with some Bloody Difficult Women actually” Rex Features Theresa May in quotes On keeping secrets even from her husband: “There are some things I am told that I am not able to confide in anybody” Rex Features Theresa May in quotes On the relentless focus on her appearance during a speech at the Women in the World summit: "I like clothes and I like shoes. One of the challenges for women in the workplace is to be ourselves and I say you can be clever and like clothes. You can have a career and like clothes” Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On comparisons to Margaret Thatcher: “I think there can only ever be one Margaret Thatcher. I’m not someone who naturally looks to role models. I’ve always, whatever job it is I’m doing at the time, given it my best shot. I put my all into it, and try to do the best job I can” AFP/Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On her rebelliousness, or lack of, as a teenager: “I probably was Goody Two Shoes at school” Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On being replaced as chairman by Lord Saatchi and Liam Fox in 2003: “Yes, it takes two men to step into the shoes of one woman” AFP/Getty Images Theresa May in quotes What Theresa May said when she was asked about her political ambitions during an interview with Miriam González Durántez, a lawyer married to Nick Clegg, in December: MD: "My very last question is: that little girl who is somewhere there, is she dreaming of becoming the next British Prime Minister?" TM: "She’s dreaming of carrying on doing a good job in the Home Office" Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On not being able to have children: “I like to keep my personal life personal. We couldn’t have children, we dealt with it and moved on. I hope nobody would think that mattered; I can still empathise, understand people and care about fairness and opportunity” Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On whether she can deliver the mandate of the EU referendum: “I think for party members and indeed for others, I would say look at my record. I think they can see that I’m somebody who gets on with the job, but I’m also somebody who says it as I see it and actually delivers on what I say” Getty Images Theresa May in quotes On the equally relentless obsession with her shoes: “As a woman I know you can be very serious about something and very soberly dressed add a little bit of interest with footwear. I always tell women ‘you have to be yourself, don’t assume you have to fit into a stereotype’ and if your personality is shown through your clothes or shoes, so be it” Getty Images

And so to the light at the end of the tunnel, the soothing salve for May’s festering sore.

One man who did emote when it mattered was Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader has a lot to prove, and needs to show he can unite his party, but he’s the bookies’ favourite for a rather more important race: who will be the next Prime Minister.