IT’S always been rather a mystery that many voters, including a sizeable proportion of the working class, associate the Tory party with competent government particularly when one considers the present intake.

David Cameron will go down in history as one of the laziest and most incompetent prime ministers, who when the time came to confront the consequences of his bungling leadership, ran away to a shepherd’s hut in his garden. It was unfortunate for the citizens of the UK to find that his successor is even more clueless.

Theresa May had a Commons majority but threw it away by calling a needless general election and running a disastrous campaign. Consequently, she now has a minority government.

She then, in an act of bravado and stubbornness triggered Article 50 when she could have waited until she had worked out an effective stance prior to negotiations.

Worst of all, her weak position has obliged her to rely on public school blunderers such as Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, typecast versions of the British ruling class who would not be out of place in a Lord Snooty cartoon.

Time for the young of the UK to abandon ship.

V J Connor, Bishop Auckland