In her final speech, Theresa May inadvertently cemented her legacy by reminding us of her failures

Editorial: To her credit, she admitted that she had some regrets about the words she has used, but it is a little late now

She made no apology for the most calamitous catchphrase of all: ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ (Reuters)

With her recent unbuttoned, witty reinvention of herself there was much hope that Theresa May, formerly “the Maybot”, would use her final major speech to tell a few home truths, settle a few scores and issue a few warnings about the direction the nation she has led for the past three years is going.

Some observers even supposed that this most cautious of politicians would let rip.

In the end, as so often in the past, she disappointed. It was more apologia than anything. Boiled down it amounted to a plea in mitigation of her own political failures. The line is – and it will be her line for evermore – that she could have delivered Brexit if other people (Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the European Research Group, the Europeans) were as reasonable as she was and as prepared to compromise. They weren’t. So her deal – “a good deal” – fell through. She didn’t quite stamp her foot and declare “it’s not my fault”, but it’s an accurate summary of the May alibi.