Has it sunk in yet? The thought of five more years of Boris Johnson “unleashing Britain’s potential” by doing whatever the bloody hell he likes? I had to take Corbyn’s advice and have a "period of reflection" before offering my thoughts. Well, one prevailing thought actually. The Tories didn’t win. Labour lost. And I don’t mean in the passive, where-were-they? sense. We are talking chronic self-harm here.

“How so?” you say. Didn’t the Conservatives win their largest majority (80) since 1987, painting Labour heartland Labour seats such as Rother Valley blue in the process? Indeed. With British politics in disarray and the soaring volume and velocity of information and misinformation flying around, a weary electorate needs one thing above all – clarity of message. And Labour failed miserably.

In fact, Labour was so inept at instilling confidence in its ability to govern, that the party lost twice as many Remain voters than there were Leave-supporting defectors from the Conservatives. Those blues keen to stay in Europe voted Lib Dem over Labour by a ratio of more than four to one according to Prospect.

Keir Starmer is the hot favourite to succeed Corbyn despite his more pro-Remain stance on Brexit. A few days ago the moderate former director of public prosecutions gave this analysis: “We didn't knock down the “Get Brexit Done” mantra. We took too much baggage into the election and even though there were really strong propositions in the manifesto, we put so much on the table you couldn’t see the wood from the trees.”

Meanwhile, master of intervention Tony Blair couldn't help himself, calling the hard-left Labour party “a glorified protest movement with cult trimmings” and arguing that, “to win power we need self-discipline, not self-indulgence”.

Another former prime minister, Australian Kevin Rudd, has also emphasised how crucial the Labour leader was in determining how people voted. “This campaign was about Jeremy Corbyn as opposed to whether there should be a second referendum on Brexit,” he told The Monocle Minute. His YouGov approval rating was a dismal -40 compared to a hardly exceptional -12 for Johnson.

Tortoise editor Matthew D’Ancona wrote a revealing piece about Corbyn’s policies and attempted to place his socialism in the context of the current and any future Labour Party. He also touched on the importance of image and message. “The core mystery of Corbyn’s conduct in this campaign has been his failure to communicate his plans with anything approaching urgency, or a visible hunger to convince the unpersuaded and politically homeless. He does not look or sound impatient, or like a man on the brink of destiny.”

Winning elections comes down to what’s being offered (policy) and by who (party credibility, leader personality) but also how (your campaign and core message). At the end of the day, the Conservatives were far better at the final two, making the first rather redundant. And they succeeded by spending less on social networks such as Facebook and Snapchat, although they did top the list for Google ad spend.

The edited Starmer GMTV interview didn’t matter, neither did “punchgate” nor their bogus claim that the Labour manifesto would make all voters £2,400 worse off. Despite largely pursuing “exaggeration of its own policy platform and misrepresentation of the opposition’s” (according to leading fact-checking charity fullfact.org, who also contested 88% of Tory claims in Facebook ads), the majority of the electorate chose decisiveness and assertion over wooly sentiment.

Cost of Corbyn

Get Brexit Done

These lines are hardly in the same league as “Labour Isn’t Working” but like that legendary Saatchi & Saatchi slogan from 1978, both did ruthlessly exploit voter anxiety around a single issue. The challenge for the next Labour leader will be to not only move the party more toward the centre ground, but to also get their message right so resounds far beyond the latte liberals.