In this never-ending age of political uncertainty, at least we know this: young people don’t care much for politicians, newspapers or being told what to think. Jeremy Corbyn will argue otherwise, of course. He’ll claim that this mess of a result is proof of a deep, mutual love between him and Britain’s 18-24 year-olds. But it’s not. He is just the club which which those voters in our university towns and cities picked up to beat the "establishment" with.

He had a good campaign, for sure, and his deeply cynical offer to buy those young votes with a promise to drop tuition fees was also very effective. He reckoned they would care more about that bribe than they would his IRA/Hezbollah-loving history. A strategy that proved robust, even in the face of two domestic terror atrocities.

Read more: Why Arsene Wenger is Arsenal’s Jeremy Corbyn

But this is a fling, not a relationship with a long-term future. And the problems that existed within his own party yesterday, still remain today. Like the disgruntled Arsenal fans who wanted Wenger out, those unhappy Labour MPs are stuck with a boss they don’t want. Corbyn didn’t win the premiership, but he picked up a cup and in doing so has earned the right to stick around for a while yet.

That is all cold comfort for Theresa May and the Tory party as they try to work out how and why it all went so badly wrong.

There are a number factors at play but the core cause, I believe, was a campaign that seemed designed to disconnect, rather than deepen, the prime minister’s relationship with the electorate.

When Mrs May cleverly saw an opportunity to seize power after the referendum vote, she positioned herself as being on the side of the public. She played the national interest card but also positioned herself as a political outsider. Someone who had stepped out of the Westminster bubble to do things differently.

Read more: Theresa May's premiership is finished

Go back to her leadership launch press conference and you’ll see a woman who was relaxed, comfortable-in-her-own-skin, cracking jokes, focused and refreshing. A performance not loaded with promises of new dawns and sunlit uplands - just the simple idea that the country must come first.

Fast forward to the election and it was as though Mrs May had been replaced by a body double. Stiff, controlled, nervous and avoidant. A character change epitomised by her refusal to take part in TV debates – an error that in one move told those younger voters: “I’m in it for myself.”

The manifesto farrago didn’t help, of course, but those errors were tactical. The prime minister’s strategic error was to forget that the relationship between politicians and large parts of the electorate is fragile and constantly open to review. By revealing herself to be calculating and self-interested she stepped back into the bubble and became, once again, "Just like the rest of them."

But, as I write, she remains prime minister, on the field of play and with no obvious Tory successor waiting in the wings. She only need look across the despatch box to see that memories are short and mistakes can be forgotten.

So it’s time for Mrs May to immediately show some humility, regain the ability to speak sense not soundbite, take some risks and begin the work of reinvention.

Now read more about the 2017 general election

• Matt d'Ancona on why Theresa May is toast

Andy Coulson was David Cameron’s director of communications from 2007 until 2011 and is co-founder and CEO of strategic advisory firm coulsonchappell.com