I suspect that the first casualty of this election will be the dog. Like Larry he will be airbrushed out of history. And when Carrie emerges on the steps of Number Ten with a particularly fluffy pair of slippers it will be confirmed that he will be residing in that great dogs home in the sky.

 

So who will be the real losers? Jacob and the Ergonauts will be tuned into a floating funeral pyre with Cabinet bodies flaming at gas mark 4. Loathesome, Truss and the rest of the crazies will be alive and medium well. Oh, how I will miss the wise and measured words of Mr Mark Gino Francois. The common sense of Mr Mogg. The intellect and wit of Liz Truss. At last the asylum is not being run by the lunatics. Oh, hang on, apart from Dom. And he may well be past his sell by date. But credit to him. The strategy that we mocked him for worked.

 

Let us also mourn the tolerance and flexibility of the DUP. The dead hands of Ulster will now revert to being provincial politicians with all the power and influence of a pox doctor’s clerk. If I were Boris I’d say to them that if you don’t get back to work and form an administration we’ll stop paying your wages.

 

Mercifully, there will be no more talk of a People’s Vote and no more trips to the Supreme Court because the PM can do what he wants. And that means a far softer Brexit and closer alignment than could ever be dreamed of. So, fellow Remainers, the game is up. Let him get on with it because soon we will have a clearer understanding of what ‘it’ is.

 

This majority is a precious gift that can easily be frittered away. The red wall seats have to be respected and their fears about immigration and unemployment have to be allayed. They have been abandoned by their tribe; patronised, ignored and sneered at. The tweets from the privately educated  Bollinger Bolsheviks are depressingly predictable. ‘We offered them hope and the ignorant working classes just don’t understand what they have done’. This is Johnson’s opportunity to breathe new life into the neglected pottery and old mining towns who are dying on their feet. Do what Heseltine did in Liverpool and appoint a minister for regeneration to bring employment to the one horse towns where the horse is dead. The promise of the dignity of a job. Now that is real hope.

 

There is a feeling of despair amongst the chatteratti. But all is not lost. Set up an all party commission on the future of social care. Bring back dignity in old age. Oh, and avoid another reorganisation of the NHS.

 

On a political level I would urge magnanimity. Put Ken Clarke in the Lords, get Heseltine’s input on regeneration. Heal the party and you can start to heal the country.

 

I remember the 1987 election well. I doubled my majority. This victory is comparable. But don’t forget the words of Thatcher as she ascended the stairs of Conservative Central Office. ‘We must do something about the inner cities’.  That is exactly what Johnson must do. And quickly.