Prime Minister now on a mission of salvage and

THERESA May proved herself the master of the understatement when she described last month’s election result as “not what I wanted”.

She must wince at the thought that her decision to go for a snap election will be remembered as one of the worst gambles in modern political history.

Now she is on a mission to ensure history books will also record some true achievements alongside this fiasco.

She has the chance to win lasting respect if she can negotiate a decent Brexit deal and guide the country out of the EU without any sectors of the economy crashing off a cliff.

Negotiating such an exit would be a mighty challenge even if she had an unassailable majority in the Commons. But the leaders of each of the remaining 27 member states know just how precarious her position is.

Mrs May needs to give the impression she is leading the country rather than hanging onto her job until her party can agree on an alternative. If she lacks a domestic agenda she will look – as Norman Lamont devastatingly described John Major’s government – “in office but not in power”.

She used the launch of a big report on modern working conditions to insist that despite the calamitous loss of her government’s majority her commitment to change Britain is “undimmed”.

Her ambition may be intact, but without a majority she is vulnerable to Tory rebellions and has little chance of getting epoch-defining legislation through the Commons. The £1bn deal with the DUP falls far short of a coalition so she will need to cobble together support for bills that are not related to Brexit or security.

She has taken yet another gamble by inviting Opposition parties to come forward with their own ideas to reform the world of work and “contribute” instead of just criticising.

Labour is more excited about the possibility of another election than the chance to shape a Conservative government’s legislative programme. Many of her own MPs would be irked