Let's hear it for the nation state

While Brexit had 52 per cent support, that support surely hardened and expanded as parliamentarians, and the judiciary, frustrated that original vote, prolonging the process over three years.

It must have, because the Tory take-out message was "Let's get this thing done" – "this thing", not even "Brexit". Voters had just had it with the talkers.

Corbyn's pitch was also lacking in realism. Labour had no real position on Brexit, which in effect meant it had no position on where sovereignty resides. That would have resonated widely, encapsulating doubts about where they might stand on securing borders and culture, as well as the primary question.

Their economic policies also lacked credibility.

The policies were based on a form of populist Marxism, demonising some in order to legitimise appropriation of their income. This was combined with policies derived from Modern Monetary Theory (which is the pretence governments can borrow as much as they like, or just create credit, so they can build everything and supply anything anyone could want, and at the same time pay everyone a Universal Basic Income).

Boris wasn't exactly parsimonious, and there will be a reckoning with some of his promises, but the Tories have a reputation which stems from their Thatcherite legacy. Margaret Thatcher (to whose 1983 victory this will be compared) famously compared the national budget to a household budget, both of which she argued, needed to be funded.

Just watch this focus group of Labor voters from a week and a half before this poll. They'd clearly absorbed the lesson that the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.

This isn't a comprehensive list of reasons for the win. There were a myriad of local issues, including the effect Corbyn's anti-Semitism had on the Jewish vote – critical in some urban constituencies.

And some of the reasons for the win were technical. The campaign that Boris, or rather Linton Crosby, ran was brilliant. It was so focussed that the message penetrated as far as the Antipodes, and it was done without taking itself too seriously.

It ticked all the boxes (unlike the previous Theresa May one) including tightening the vote at the end with strategic leaks that it was going to be tighter than it looked.

Above all Johnson is not your typical politician. He takes risks, just like Trump, and to a lesser extent Morrison. Watch his Love Actually spoof and think about it.

Here is a guy with a reputation as a philanderer who can't be trusted with "your wife or your wallet", romancing the vote of a woman on her own doorstep, with her husband inside, at the same time nicking a scene from a movie which starred one of his arch enemies, it runs for close to a minute, and millions watched it, millions more heard about it.