Theresa Mary May is the only woman in Britain to have held two great offices of state. For that she will go down in history. She will also be remembered for her stoicism, her sponge-like capacity to absorb humiliation after humiliation, and her inability to see off a pack of immature bully boys who should have been shown the exit door.

What to make of her legacy as the political baton is passed back to the good old boys – overwhelmingly white, privileged, pseudo-alpha male, metaphorically dressed in the safari suits of our less than illustrious colonial past – content to resume business as it always was: relatively female free? May is a disastrous politician. Regardless of where you stand – left, right or centre, Remainer or Leave – by any standards of what makes a strong leader, sound of judgement, perceptive of character, empathetic, intellectually capable of thinking several moves ahead of the opposition and anchored by a vision of what you want to do with power and the ruthlessness to carry it through no matter how turbulent the storms, she has failed.

May was home secretary for six years until she became prime minister in 2016. In her farewell speech she told us: “I have done my best… I have done everything I can.” She has described herself as “decent, moderate and patriotic”. She is a one nation Conservative who fought against the “burning injustices in society”.

She is an ironic reversal of the impostor syndrome in which women who think of themselves as less than men, believe that they are not entitled to hold a position in which they are, nevertheless, excelling against the odds. May’s outstanding characteristic has been her self-delusion. She is the creator of untold “burning injustices”.

While home secretary her job on the side was as minister for women. More than 80% of the austerity cuts have hit women hardest; domestic violence refuges have been axed, benefit changes have dug holes from which there is little escape.

She has overseen a cabinet of (mostly) uncharismatic males living off a past when they were once head boy of a private boarding school, besotted by the private sector, busy turning the welfare state into a junk yard of human aspirations. Windrush, Grenfell, accelerating rates of child poverty, homelessness, the unregulated gig economy, paralysed social mobility – some legacy.

But she’s a woman! Women have a hard time; only 29% of Westminster MPs are female (61% in Rwanda and half of its cabinet!).

Tory MP Mark Francois, Westminster’s jumped-up sergeant major said, “Unfortunately, the Dancing Queen has met her Waterloo.” Nowadays, however, sexism exposes the bores and retrogrades for what they are. So, let’s stop this patronising fixation that a woman who is “a first” deserves some kind of special dispensation.

According to the G7 Reykjavik Index for Leadership , in the UK, 78% of women and 75% of men think men and women are equally capable of leading. And, therefore, on their record, they should be judged. The electorate has grown up – even if Westminster hasn’t.