This election was one for the history books – but how do previous votes compare?

The good news for me is that I guessed the Conservatives would have a majority of 80. The bad news is that I was talking about Theresa May in 2017.

I did think Boris Johnson would get a majority of 50. “You were right,” a Corbyn ally called to say, generously. They expected a hung parliament.

When you’re a politician or adviser, it’s difficult to plan for the worst; you have to believe. A lot of now former MPs will also be hurting. It’s a rough trade.

During this campaign, I kept writing about the parallels with 2017. But I kept thinking about the first general election I covered after moving to Westminster.

In 1983, Labour fought on a left-wing manifesto under a left-wing, CND-supporting, 69-year-old leader in Michael Foot. I remember him being buoyed up by the rapturous reception he received while touring the country on an open-top double-decker bus. But the mood was misleading; he was preaching to the converted, not impressing the wider public. Labour suffered a devastating defeat, losing 55 seats and ending up with just 209 MPs, as the Tories profited from the split between Labour and the SDP-Liberal alliance. Anything sound familiar?

Jeremy Corbyn was elected in that election. Remarkably, the party has now done even worse under his leadership. It lost 59 seats, falling to just 203 MPs, its worst result since 1935.

Foot’s manifesto was dubbed “the longest suicide note in history”. Labour tried to learn the lessons. Neil Kinnock, his successor, began a tortuous process of taking the party towards the centre. It took two more defeats before Tony Blair completed the process in 1997.

The early signs are that the left will fight to ensure Corbynism survives after Corbyn departs. In effect, his allies are saying what his hero and mentor Tony Benn said in 1983. Although Margaret Thatcher won a majority of 144, Benn celebrated the fact that “a party with an openly socialist policy has received the support of over eight and a half million people”.

I suspect the Brexit election of 2019 will enter the history books as the third landmark one of modern times, along with 1997 and Thatcher’s first victory in 1979. Ominously for Labour, the other two marked the start of more than a decade in power for the winner.

Yours

Andrew Grice

Political commentator