The Tories grotesquely under-estimated Jeremy Corbyn

Now even her future as Prime Minister is seriously under question after barely a year at 10, Downing Street.

The Tories have only themselves to blame. They grotesquely underestimated Jeremy Corbyn’s political acumen and followed slavishly the naive and frankly useless advice from outside “experts” on how to run the election campaign, instead of relying on their own instincts.

Corbyn successfully tapped into the youth vote - something no British political leader has done before - and now he is to appear at the Glastonbury Festival, another feather in his cap. Things could hardly look bleaker for the Tories.

The truth is, the Tories seemingly did all the wrong things after Grenfell, while Corbyn, seen hugging survivors, did all the right ones. It seems cruel, even obscene to equate Grenfell with political point-scoring, but Corbyn was easily the winner.

Now, to add to May’s woes, there is already talk of a leadership contest being considered by her fuming Tory critics, which could see her flat on her face with the ludicrous Boris Johnson in charge.

And now with the Brexit discussions looming and the threat of a general election - which they would surely lose - hanging over them like a black cloud, the Conservatives could hardly be in a more dire position.

• Let us park Theresa May in a layby for a while. She once described the Tories as the Nasty Party. But for the Really Nasty Party, I would instantly plump for the Liberal Democrats, whose leader Tim Farron was virtually hounded out of the job by colleagues because of his Christian principles on abortion and homosexuality.

I wish he would have stood up to these bullies, but he felt he could not lead the party in these circumstances. It must have been all the more galling for him to be attacked by David Laws, of all people, who was sacked from the Cabinet after 17 days for a breach of the expenses rule.

If these critics think they have won a great victory, they are wrong. They have shown themselves to be totally unworthy of the claim to be liberal - with either a capital, or a small, L.

• I was accompanying Helmut Kohl, the portly former German Chancellor who has just died, when he was walking through a German provincial town with Margaret Thatcher. After about half-an-hour, he decided he had had more than his fill of being harangued and handbagged. So after a whispered conversation with an aide, he said to the British PM, “I am so sorry, but I have to return to Bonn at once to attend to an urgent matter.”

And he sped off in a car. A little later on, Thatcher peered through the window of a cake shop and saw Kohl tucking in, with relish, to a pile of cream cakes when he was supposed to be attending to urgent business in Bonn. Not his finest hour.

• Tory Rory Stewart is a man after my own heart. When asked whether he would like to swear an oath of allegiance or affirm when he took his seat in the Commons, he replied: “Whichever is the more old-fashioned and traditional.” Long live tradition!

Incidentally, when the late Labour sports minister, Tony Banks swore the oath a few years ago, he was photographed with his hand behind his back and his fingers crossed as he did so.

And while on the subject of tradition, I recall former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan asking his tailor to make him a new suit. When the tailor inquired: “What style sir?” Macmillan’s regular reply was: “Like the last one.”

• Cynical comment of the week? Sir Vince Cable could become a candidate for the Liberal Democrat leadership at the age of 74. One wag commented: “By the time of the next general election, he will be 74 and a half...”