Theresa May’s premiership has ended in failure. Nobody can seriously argue with this conclusion, however well disposed they are to her. No historian, however revisionist, is likely to revise that.

She set herself the task of delivering Brexit smoothly and on time and she has not. She committed herself to an ambitious attempt to take the problems of those just about managing and she has not been able to make much headway. She sees herself as someone who profoundly understands the Conservative Party, yet she has been deserted by its members and its voters.

Much more open to debate will be the reasons for that failure. There are two broad and conflicting accounts.

Theresa May out on the campaign trail in her Maidenhead constituency in 1997 TIMES NEWSPAPERS LTD

The first is damning. She was in above her head. Elected