Well. A new dawn has shat, has it not? Shortly after 7am, Boris Johnson slipped into the costume Dominic Cummings has been sewing for him out of the skins of missing statesmen. “I am humbled that you have put your trust in me,” announced the nation’s foremost liar in front of a backdrop reading “the people’s government”, as though this ideally axiomatic concept was an innovation.

With the emphasis on “a sacred trust”, this government’s senior personnel are immediately keen to stress it will be a servant of the people. I assume the specific servant it’s modelled on is Paul Burrell. They’ve already dragged the Queen into it, and will soon begin amassing the nation’s property in their attic “for safekeeping”. Brexit will be done for Christmas, with Johnson scoring a stunning victory for the bullshit-industrial complex. From the outset, the Tories decided it was more effective to pretend you’re listening to people who have doubts about you, than to invite them to fuck off and join the Labour party. But hey – everyone’s a strategist after the event.

Devoid of agility, charisma and credibility, Corbyn has led Labour into the abyss | Polly Toynbee Read more

In financial news, the pound pounded exuberantly to its money shot, and I imagine there were big moves on the US chlorine markets. Back in Westminster, the UK’s prime minister took to the podium like a gelatinous Sith, introduced by Michael Gove as part of the Conservative scheme to rehabilitate former knife-wielders. Three-and-a-half years ago, Michael was telling the world that Boris Johnson was unfit for leadership; now he was giving a community theatre performance worthy of the League of Gentlemen’s troupe, Legz Akimbo. Solemnly, Gove announced that Britain’s Jews “should never have to live in fear again”. Britain’s Muslims, not so much, given the prime minister’s multiple racisms on that and other fronts, and a grotesque TV riff merely hours earlier on burqa-wearing fighter pilots, from world’s worst stage dad Stanley Johnson.

Still, where there is discord, let Boris sow his wild oats. And then leave you to raise them. The point is: Johnson is world king now. And so to what happens next.

The Tory programme for government was not so much a manifesto as a Mumsnet “Am I being unreasonable?” thread. It also stopped after the first year, with the only clue for Act 2 being plans for voter suppression, and the so-called page 48 material, paving the way for the government to dismantle judicial and even parliamentary constraints on itself. As for the 2019 Tory intake, you may find yourself gripped by a hunch that the party has spent about 15 minutes vetting half the newbies, whose moral eccentricities will gradually unfurl themselves to us like so many exquisite lotus blossoms.

Johnson announced his intention to bring the country back together, presumably by walling us in and forcing us to till his sunlit uplands. Speaking of which, Ashfield was won by a Tory named Lee Anderson, who put out a video during the campaign stating that “nuisance” council tenants should be made to live in tents in the middle of a field, where they would be woken at 6am and forced to pick vegetables until the end of the day, when they’d get a cold shower, then “back in the tent”. Labour came third – THIRD – here.

A historic triumph for the Tories, then. Less so for the others, bar of course the SNP. Even hopes that Dominic Raab would soon be spending more time with the contents of his lock-up were misplaced. For their part, Labour line-takers were keen to concentrate on the differences between the 2017 and 2019 elections, but would arguably benefit more from accepting the similarities. Which are that they lost both times. This one was the real bed-shitter, though. Jeremy Corbyn has announced he will not fight the next election, but will stay in post to preside over the process of dealing with its fallout. This feels a bit like BP pitching for the contract to clean up the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon spill.

Unfortunately, Corbyn’s promise of a “period of reflection” did not seem to be politician-speak for looking at himself in the mirror. Instead, a period of reflection led by a man who hasn’t changed his mind since 1970 seems an inevitable act of political Dadaism.

In reality, though, the timing doesn’t much matter, with the scale of this victory likely to take a decade to turn around. Corbynism has turned out to be for the very, very few. Which is to say, nobody at all. Yet. There was some talk this morning of it being a 30-year project, suggesting the plan will come to glorious fruition just in time for the moment we’re living, Children of Men-style, in Britain’s catacombs. At that point, Corbynism will sweep to power with an ambitious programme of nationalising the urine distilleries via which we obtain our drinking water. If you totally agree they shouldn’t be in the hands of the private militias, make a calendar note to get very excited about this bold and transformative vision in 2045.

Today? Well, according to a range of senior Labour figures, “the real fight starts now”. No rush, of course – though it would be nice to get a heads-up on whether they think it’ll be a fight for medicines or fuel. On the other hand, some people are just about beginning to tire of Labour fights starting after the knockout, when someone else has won the belt, and the party’s woken up in the head trauma unit.

• Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist