Could Corbyn’s dream become our nightmare?

After all, the opinion polls gave her a commanding lead over a Labour Party that no-one – not even its own MPs – could take seriously.

It turns out Mrs May was right but not because she wanted a big majority to boost her chances of negotiating a successful Brexit deal with the European Union.

She was right because, in the weeks of the campaign, she has seen her lead and her popularity plummet as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s standing has risen.

Suddenly there is a prospect – a danger, I should say – that by tomorrow morning Mr Corbyn could be our Prime Minister at the head of the proverbial ‘coalition of chaos’.

And the risk, unimaginable just a few short weeks ago, really does make this the most important election for a generation.

Consider the consequences of a Corbyn-led Government.

Within days, the economy would be on its knees. The value of the pound would plummet as investors fled. Share prices, and along with them the pension prospects for ordinary people, would suffer a meltdown.

Big businesses would immediately start making plans to get out of the country before Labour’s tax-and-spend plans could start to hit.

The better-off, people on £80,000 or more, would immediately look to shelter their own wealth from the depredations of the taxman by fleeing abroad as well.

The rest of us would be terrified of spending money because we would know only too well that the new Chancellor, John McDonnell, could not impose his spending plans without introducing new taxes that hit just about everybody.

(It’s worth noting, by the way, that Mr McDonnell was once sacked by Ken Livingstone, of all people, for being too left-wing in his handling of London’s finances.)

In any case, one of the first jobs for the Bank of England would be to push up interest rates, leaving us all worse off.

We have enjoyed a decade of rock-bottom interest rates. Many people have no notion that they can rise to as much as ten per cent or even more. And they would under a Government dedicated to borrowing as much money as it can get its hands on.

This would be just the start. It has taken ten years for Britain to recover from the devastating bank crash we suffered under the last Labour Government but all that hard work and austerity would be undone.

Abolishing tuition fees, employing more police, offering free child-care and throwing big pay rises at public-sector workers would all have to be paid for.

Labour’s plans to nationalise former state-owned industries like the Royal Mail and the water companies, the railways and fuel suppliers, would cost an unimaginable fortune.

The black hole in the finances – supposedly filled by borrowing on an unprecedented scale – would mortgage the future for everyone and lead to economic stagnation followed by serious recession.

Britain would be on course for the kind of economy now endured in Greece or even in Mr Corbyn’s much-admired Venezuela, where inflation is heading for 2,000 per cent.

Unemployment – not an issue at this election because, for all practical purposes it doesn’t exist – would be back with a vengeance.

And that’s just the economy. What about Britain’s defences? Mr Corbyn cannot bring himself to contemplate using any of our armed forces, let alone our nuclear defences, in any circumstances. We would be defenceless.

And we would have as our Prime Minister a man who cannot see any passing terrorist without wanting to make friends with him.

Throughout his career, Mr Corbyn has been on the side of every group dedicated to bombing and murdering innocent people, from Hamas to the IRA.

There is no reason to suppose his attitude would change in the face of Islamic extremists. And it is the height of hypocrisy for him this week to whine about reductions in police manpower when his response to terrorist threats is always to side with the men of violence.

There are, it seems, deluded people with no sense of recent history who see in Mr Corbyn some kind of messiah capable of leading the country into a promised land of milk and honey where money grows on trees and the lion lies down with the lamb.

It is possible the opinion polls are being manipulated to frighten people into taking Mr Corbyn seriously and therefore, faced with such a horrifying prospect, they vote against him after all.

It is possible the Labour surge is a figment of the pollsters’ imaginations and the voters of Britain actually have the good sense to realise how disastrous a Corbyn Government would be.

But there is also the possibility that younger voters, with no recollection of the dark days of the 1970s, will actually stir themselves enough to vote this time, and vote in droves for the benign-looking Mr Corbyn.

Many of those young people who didn’t bother to vote in the EU referendum, and later wished they had done so after all, feel they learned a lesson the hard way and are more motivated to get down to their local polling stations in the hope of getting a Labour Government.

This election is highlighting a generational divide between younger and older voters which was apparent during the EU referendum.

So it’s ironic the man hailed as the champion of the younger generation is actually 68 years old.

If younger voters do push Labour over the wire, we will certainly be lumbered with a minority Government propped up – until they achieve independence – by the Scottish Nationalists: Vote Corbyn get Nicola Sturgeon.

Rule from Edinburgh would add yet another complication and make it more or less impossible for Labour to negotiate any sort of serious departure from the European Union.

Mr Corbyn would be a prisoner of the Scots, who refuse to accept the democratic will of the people and want to stay in the EU. There would be no Brexit.

The other night I watched an episode of the fantasy TV series ‘Game of Thrones’ to see what all the fuss was about. It involved people talking a weird made-up language and flying about on dragons.

It is immensely popular, as are other fantasy epics like ‘Lord of the Rings’ or the ‘Star Wars’ films. They transport viewers into strange magical worlds where the usual rules do not apply.

Jeremy Corbyn’s pitch to the voters is just as fantastical. But Islington’s answer to Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi is not the sage guru his supporters think he is. He’s a bumbling buffoon who accidentally finds himself on the threshold of a dream.

A dream for Mr Corbyn, maybe. A nightmare for the rest of us.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Russian revolution. It can’t happen here. Can it?