There has been an unofficial contest among British political commentators in recent months, in which we show off our historical prowess in debating about the last time the nation had a prime minister as breathtakingly bad as Theresa May. John Major, whose craven approach to the European Union’s attempted control of Great Britain put his party out of office for thirteen years from 1997, is a recent contender. Ted Heath, who created a Conservative corporate state in the early 1970s, with controls on prices and incomes, ad hoc nationalizations, and an assortment of socialist horrors, is another. Anthony Eden mangled Suez, but at least had earlier triumphs to commend him. Then one considers Chamberlain, who is guilty of having appeased Hitler but did increase defense spending so that when Britain entered the war the nation was adequately prepared; Balfour, who split his party over free trade; or even Rosebery, who seemed dead from boredom from the moment he took on the job. All are plainly inadequate, yet there is actually no one to touch May since Lord North lost the American colonies.

Her charge sheet is long. First and foremost, she has handled the negotiations over the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union (for which she had a clear mandate after the biggest vote ever conducted in this country, with 72.2 percent, or 33.6 million of Britain’s 46.5 million registered voters turning out) abominably. In the two years between the triggering of the so-called “Article 50”