Corbyn, winning a TV debate won’t secure you the election – just ask Ed Miliband

Unless you’ve got a Thor-sized sort of axe to grind – and there’s plenty as does – you have to give it to Jeremy Corbyn. He won. He had his stumbles, most notably when his eyes darted around when he was asked by Jeremy Paxman about the benefits freeze. It was as if Corbyn was trying to remember what Seamus told him to say – but mostly the Leader of the Opposition was witty, charming and convincing, especially so with the studio audience in the Sky News/Channel 4 studio.

Theresa May, by contrast, was also herself: a bit brittle, edgy (in a bad way) and evasive. Wobbly, even. She was wise to leave the sound bites about “strong and stable leadership” at reception, but got badly tangled when asked when, if ever, she changed her mind about Brexit. The audience at times laughed at her. She lost. So what?

Last night's contest was rather like if newly promoted Huddersfield Town managed to get a 1-0 off Chelsea in their first Premier League clash. It would defy expectations, it would be fun, as it always is to see an underdog cock its leg against the lamppost of the mighty and powerful – and it wouldn’t change a darn thing. And I am afraid (for you Corbynites) or glad (for you Tories) that Corbyn’s shtick about peace and people will not much change the outcome of this election.

First off, the bookies say that Theresa May is still on for a majority in the Commons of about 100, and the polls point to one of about 80-plus. That’s towards the upper end of what most prime ministers get to see. Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair did enjoy much bigger landslides – but not for all their elections. It was not routine, even for them. The important factor in the Commons is usually the gap between the governing party and the principal opposition. May should still have a comfortable enough majority, at least on paper. (Big majorities can actually encourage revolts, and cannot prevent economic disasters. So watch that space.)

Of course it won’t be “fair” – and we may expect a renewed campaign for proportional representation after the 2017 general election hands Theresa May near absolute power over Brexit and everything else with only a minority of the vote. Labour, by the way, had their chance to change the voting system when Blair was armed with his giant majority after 1997; plainly he thought the Conservatives were broken for a century and he needn’t worry. Nearly right, Tony.

Everyone in the media loves the opinion polls – too much, in my view – because they give us a good story. The “dramatic” shortening of the Conservative lead in recent weeks from somewhere north of 20 points to maybe six or so is one such. And it is perfectly true that what looked like an utter destruction of Labour, a change-the-course-of-history-type route, is not going to transpire; indeed Corbyn may well fare better than Ed Miliband or Gordon Brown. Yet no one seems to remember that the “lead” of one party over another is simply the product of two very large numbers moving around, and is intrinsically volatile and overstated. The Tory and Labour ratings can move relatively slightly, maybe within the margins of error of three percentage points each – yet yield an apparently enormous-looking sort of swing. And yet down there on the ground no one has actually necessarily changed their mind – it is all to do with sampling variations. Or could be.

That said, this is certainly looking like a more interesting election, with the momentum, if I may borrow the term, certainly going with Corbyn's Labour, and the Tories losing their grip on the agenda. Yet this would not be the first time a political party has run a miserable campaign only to win handsomely when the votes are cast. Ed Miliband, in his “hell, yeah” moment, also did better than expected in the TV debates. He still failed, in the 2015 election, to prevent the Conservatives winning their first overall majority since 1992.

In 2010, Nick Clegg’s TV performances were so unexpectedly polished – from a figure barely known to the public – that “Cleggmania” took hold, and his party was expected to sweep the board with students and younger voters (ironically enough) and see 100-plus seats. Again, that didn’t happen, though he did do well enough to have the misfortune to end up as the abused partner in the unhappy marriage to the Tories.

Going back further, we can look at the slick, professional, “modern” 1987 Labour campaign, complete with Peter Mandelson-inspired red rose logo and Hugh Hudson-directed movies, which left Thatcher lording it over everything with a third successive win. That was the one when two very senior Tories – Lord Young and Norman Tebbit – came to near blows over their lacklustre campaign. So the legend goes about a week out of polling day the suave ex-businessman Young grabbed the political skinhead Tebbit by his suit lapels and yelled into his bony face: “Norman, listen to me, we are about to lose this fucking election,” Maybe Lynton Crosby and Nick Timothy are exchanging similar pleasantries right now. I do hope so.

Thirty years ago, as now, there were competing Tory factions and marketeers trying to run things. No matter, though they still won nicely, though Neil Kinnock improved his party’s showing so much, having seen off the Lib-SDP Alliance, as to secure his leadership up to the next election. That was 1992, by the way, where the Tories treated the voters like idiots with a highly personalised campaign against the Labour leader’s supposed incompetence compared with the statesmanlike Tories negotiating a difficult treaty with the EU. The Conservatives also parroted meaningless slogans about defence and the economy. The majority of the press acted like a Tory propaganda machine and joined in the grotesque vilification of the Labour leader. Sound familiar? John Major’s Tories got back for a fourth term with a majority of 21.

Besides all that, we know that voters generally make up their minds about how to vote months or years before polling day. They spend little time thinking about politics. Not many will sit through an hour or two of TV politics, not even with Jeremy Paxman or David Dimbleby. Last night’s event did not change any of that. At the moment, the polls are looking at about 35 per cent for Labour and 43 per cent for the Conservatives – roughly what both parties got in 1979 or 1992, neither vintage years for the Labour Party, and enough to get Thatcher and Major into No 10. Their latest successor needn’t worry about the election, but about what will follow it. For good or ill, for us and for her, May is still on her way.