General Election 2024 Opinion: How the Conservatives squandered a golden opportunity

That cold and frosty morning, it looked like the blonde bombshell had rewritten the laws of political gravity. Not only had he revitalised his party after nine years in government, he had won seats in corners of the UK that had never elected Conservative MPs in more than a century.

The collapse of the Conservatives since 2019 has been something that constitutional historians will ponder over decades from now.

Of course, the downfall began with Partygate, one of the great mysteries that us ordinary folk will never understand. At the time the Tories were basking in the afterglow of the vaccination programme, and Sir Keir Starmer's grip on the Labour leadership looking decidedly shaky.

Why would a man, who has finally achieved his lifetime ambition, put it all at risk for the sake of a drink and some sandwiches? Hubris obviously makes people do stupid things. But in truth, it was the lies rather than the nibbles which did for him. Had he come clean from the start, he would probably still be in Downing Street.

Of course, nobody could have foreseen Liz Truss's madcap 49 days in charge, but the party should surely reflect on it ill-conceived election rules that allowed a few thousand activists to impose an oddball leader on the party that its MPs never wanted.

The rise and fall of Rishi Sunak has been a masterclass of how to destroy a promising career. And on reflection he might consider that impatience has been his great weakness.

Suppose that, instead of forcing Boris Johnson out of office with his dramatic resignation, he had kept his powder dry. Johnson was clearly damaged goods, but was nevertheless only 12 points behind in the polls, with two-and-a-half years to go.

Johnson may still have lost the election, of course, but it is hard to imagine a defeat on the scale we have just witnessed.

And if he had, Sunak would have been in pole position to line himself up as the party's next leader, a youthful energetic prime-minister-in-waiting, just as David Cameron had done in 2005.

Oddest of all was his decision to go to the country some six months before he needed to, at a time when he was 20 points behind in the polls.

And to make the announcement outside in the pouring rain. To then kick-off the campaign with plans to introduce compulsory national service for teenagers only reinforced the impression that this was a man clearly out of his depth.

Rishi Sunak will always be remembered as the man who got drenched as he set the stage for his own downfall.

And Liz Truss will probably one day appear as a question in Trivial Pursuit.