Theresa May has no one else to blame for this chaos

If there is ever an inquest into who torpedoed Theresa May’s chances of winning the 2017 election outright, the answer should not be in doubt. The Prime Minister was the author of her own destruction – or, at least, the staggering and needless destruction of her party’s majority. The decision to hold an early election was taken not in political cabinet, but on a walking holiday with her husband. None of her cabinet colleagues advised her to personalise her campaign to such a bizarre extent; her disastrous manifesto was as much of a surprise to them as it was to the public.

Theresa May did all this herself, with a few handpicked aides – and if she had triumphed, she’d have governed in this way. She could justifiably have said that her approach had been vindicated. She would have won not only on a manifesto that was a product of her own brand of Conservatism, but also thanks to her operating style.