Theresa May

In case you've spent the last 12 hours in a capsule below the North Atlantic, you'll be aware that Theresa May has resigned as Prime Minister.

I probably ought to reflect upon her commitment to public service, her dedication to the role and her deep and abiding love of the country.

But I won't. She ignored the 48% of the voters three years ago who voted "Remain", in her attempt to persuade herself she was doing the mythical Will of the People. A spirit more elusive than the Will of the Wisp, as Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage have twisted that Will to more and more self-destructive extremes. Like two dribbling schoolboys competing to give themselves the worst Chinese burns. Those who think Brexit is maybe a bit of a bad idea may as well not have been inhabitants of this country.

She made no attempt to work with most other parties, even when her own stupid actions in calling an election came home to roost. Although she chose to team up with the most inflexible head-bangers in the history of history - the only party that campaigned for "Leave" in the Remain-supporting province of Northern Ireland. She appointed - in Boris Johnson - the most ineffective and actually utterly dangerous man as Foreign Secretary she could have done.

When her deal - which may be the best anybody could have got - got rejected, she could have tried something different. But she adopted Graham Brady's stupid "other arrangements" amendment - even though it could never have achieved anything - and then kept bringing the stupid thing back - to Brussels then to Westminster - while nothing changed. She constantly complained about other people's inflexibility while changing nothing herself.

When her authority was ebbing away, she appealed to the people over the heads of the party whose loyalty she needed. And yet she only appealed to the rump of the 52% - those keepers of the sacred Will of the People. The rest of us could, frankly, get stuffed.

And when Amber Rudd carried the can for the Windrush scandal, let's not forget, it was the result of the hostile environment which guess who had introduced. Yep. The same former Home Secretary who decided that what the Will of the People was actually demanding was that the people of Britain should no longer be able to travel freely in Europe. Although she sold it as stopping all those nasty foreigners coming over here, obviously.

So she leaves a country that is poorer than it should have been. More divided than it should be. Facing over a cliff edge to which she has led us. Where the Union that forms a part of her own party's name has been imperilled by her own actions. And her beloved Tory Party will now spent a couple of months of utter self-indulgence, as the cliff edge gets closer, as its members try to decide who has the most virile young blood with which it can rejuvenate itself. That the chosen one is likely to be Boris Johnson tells you all you need to know about them.

Now, I've been a floating voter all my life. I've voted for the Labour party when I thought it was the better choice, and the Tory party when I thought Labour was getting too control-freaky and business should be left to crack on and make money. We're left in the position where business has been battered by the party that is supposed to enable it to thrive. In the simplest way of putting it, they are no longer a conservative party. They are the party of destroyers and simpletons. Just to see Graham Brady at work is to see the proof that inability is no obstacle to anybody given enough entitlement and self-confidence.They are wrecking our country's relationships with its nearest and best friends. And with it destroying the chances of an international UK. We know what Boris Johnson thinks about business, and it's roughly his view on a lot of things in life.

And if Theresa May reflects at all on the last three years, I hope she will realise that the reason she failed was because where a politician needs compromise, vision, an ability to take people along with her and yet also to be in touch with the real world - she fell short in all of them. And in a world where you can only achieve achievable things, she tried to deliver a unicorn that was also a Ford Fiesta. A unicorn that was really a donkey sprayed white by Boris Johnson, and a clocked Ford Fiesta she bought from Nigel Farage because he told her it had one careful owner.

And the worst of it is, I suspect she was the best candidate for Prime Minister that the Tory party had, or probably still has. I pray that Theresa May has a restful retirement. But I pray we will somehow avoid or at least mitigate some of the damage she has done.  And though I might vote Labour again one day where St Jeremy has retired full time to his allotment, I will never, ever forgive the Conservative Party. It deserves oblivion. Let something better rise in its place. And I don't mean the Brexit party.

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