Theresa May is that caricature figure, the dinner guest who has overstayed her welcome and will not take the hint to depart even when her hosts appear in the drawing room in night attire; recently she has further conformed to the cliché by producing the dreaded home movie.

It is hardly a dignified way for the oldest political culture in Europe, a party that first established itself in 1681, to exit history; but the inexorable reality is that the Tory Party is finally over. It has been caught in a perfect storm of its own creation. Bankrupt Corbynite Labour never laid a glove on it: the Conservative Party is the architect and author of its own self-immolation.