BORIS Johnson’s Brexit metaphor of the election was not the oven-ready pie being paraded in Derby or even the crate of milk being delivered at dawn in West Yorkshire but the digger knocking through a Styrofoam wall branded with the word “gridlock” in Staffordshire.

And, of course, it was the Conservative leader bulldozing his way through Labour’s “red wall” from the Midlands to northern England on the back of his core campaign message that was the story of the election, securing him his robust Commons majority to begin the process of getting Brexit done.

It was interesting to see in the final few days of the campaign as the polls narrowed sharply that nerves began to jangle at Tory HQ.

The Prime Minister and his colleagues hurriedly issued warnings against complacency; that the blue surge might not happen; that just as with Theresa May in 2017 Labour’s campaign momentum would peak just at the right moment, delivering humiliation to the incumbent.

But the wake-up call worked; if, indeed, it was ever needed. A Commons majority of 78, much bigger than the pundits had predicted, means Mr Johnson can now look over the horizon to 2020 with relish.

After the exit poll pointed to an even healthier 86-seat majority for the Tories, doubts that it could be anywhere near so high were quickly banished when the result in the Labour heartland of Blyth Valley dropped; the seat in the former mining community had fallen to the Tories’ Ian Levy by 712 votes.

But this was the first of many upsets as brick by brick Labour’s red wall was dismantled.

Seats like Bassetlaw, Great Grimsby and Dudley North all saw double-digit swings away from Labour to the Tories while other heartland seats like Leigh near Manchester as well as Wakefield and Don Valley in Yorkshire, represented by Labour for decades, fell to the blue Brexit surge.

As did Rother Valley, which had been represented by a Labour as far back as 1918.

But there was more humiliation for Jeremy Corbyn and his hard Left adherents. Bolsover, represented for 49 years by its very own “beast,” Dennis Skinner, and West Bromwich East, until recently the seat of Tom Watson, now ex of the Labour Party, fell.

And perhaps even more symbolic was the seat of former premier and three-time Labour election winner Tony Blair, Sedgefield, succumbing to the Tories with a 4,513 majority.

Alan Johnson, the former Home Secretary, told ITV News Labour's huge losses were down to a "culture of betrayal" against the working class community.

"I don't live in London, I live in Yorkshire, a working class community. Corbyn was a disaster on the doorstep. Everyone knew that he couldn't lead the working class out of a paper bag," declared the former Hull MP.

After the result emerged Michael Gove, the critic-turned-cheerleader for Mr Johnson, sought to cheerfully underscore the Tories’ achievement by noting how "both the Durham Miner's Gala and the Notting Hill Carnival will take place in seats held by Conservatives".

Of course, with all those northern working class seats Mr Johnson has a new responsibility; indeed, the once liberal Conservative Party under David Cameron has become something different: a blue-collar Conservative Party with a strong northern England accent.

Indeed, in both his dawn rally speech and his victory address from outside No 10, the Tory leader acknowledged this.

He said: “In this moment of national resolution I want to speak directly to those who made it possible and to all those who voted for us, for the first time, all those whose pencils may have wavered over the ballot and who heard the voices of their parents and their grandparents whispering anxiously in their ears.

“I say thank you for the trust you have placed in us and in me and we will work round the clock to repay your trust and to deliver on your priorities with a parliament that works for you.”

After the result of the 2016 EU referendum, which took Westminster by surprise, Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief aide, suggested the same ignorance by the denizens of SW1 was on display.

Characteristically frank, he noted: "After the shock of the referendum MPs and journalists should have taken a deep breath and had a lot of self-reflection of why they misunderstood what was going on in the country.

“But instead a lot of people just doubled down on their own ideas and f****d it up even more. That's why something like this happens against expectations.”