This is not 1992.  In a way, it’s far worse than that. Imagine this: Labour has given the Conservatives their “Portillo moment,” with Ed Balls losing his seat in Morley and Outwood, not from incumbency but from opposition.

The perspective gets even worse when you look at the figures. Overall, the Tory vote has barely shifted from 36.1 percent to (on present counts) 36.8 percent.  That is, the Tories have a bit more than a third of the vote, and fractionally more than the total with which they failed to win a parliamentary majority in 2010. This is not, chiefly, a Tory surge. In previous elections, historically, a vote share of this scale would have left the Tories on the opposition benches.

But Labour’s vote also flatlined, currently about 30.6 percent, compared to 29 percent in 2010 — which was its worst share of the vote since 1918. In key marginals, like Nuneaton, it barely made a dent. In some relatively safe Tory seats where it should have had a swing, like North Swindon (a safe Tory area since 2010 boundary changes), the Tories actually gained.