A leading environmentalist described her to me as “the rudest and most uninterested politician” they had met. Farmers named her “the worst environment secretary ever” when all she could say about the devastating recent storms was that her department was ill prepared for “rain from the east”.

From Pig World magazine to Grocery Gazette, The National Trust, the RSPCA, the Country Land and Business Association and the fishing industry, no one lamented her demise. Senior civil servants called her “sullen, haughty and divisive”. The right to roam advocate Guy Shrubsole uttered the only kind words: “May you roam freely into the political wilderness, although the beavers might complain.”

Alice Thomson www.thetimes.co.uk (Extract)