If you think no one won the great TV debate you’re quite wrong. The main objective of the Corbyn and Johnson camps was not to “land a killer blow” but to make sure that there were no “I agree with Nick” moments. The ugly duopoly know they are each other’s strongest arguments; they didn’t want anyone else to get a look in and they succeeded.

The broadcasters, in this instance ITV, were under no obligation to agree. They did so for mostly self-serving reasons which I understand too well but for which they have created a chaff-blizzard of argument about “balance across an election”. The result was that 6.7 million viewers watched this exclusive exercise and then, in the follow-up on all outlets on Tuesday evening and yesterday morning, you could pretty much have been forgiven for thinking that only two parties existed. Job done.

It was appropriate though, because in many ways this is a sham election. It doesn’t help us to do the one thing claimed for it by those who demanded it — resolve Brexit. In fact it has delayed any such resolution. The issue of what kind of Brexit, if any, we get remains unresolved and there is still every chance of a no-deal exit (the British people’s least favoured option) if and when we fail to agree a trade deal with the EU by the end of next year.

It’s a sham because until we know what that deal is, we won’t know how fast the economy is likely to grow or even to contract. Last month the Institute for Fiscal Studies gave four forecasts based on different Brexit scenarios. A no-deal scenario would mean no growth at all for two years and only 1.1 per cent in 2022. A realistic trade deal with accompanying stimulus would suggest 1.5 per cent growth. Continued delay would mean less than 1.5 per cent growth. Revoking Brexit altogether “might result in growth of 2 per cent a year”.

Yet on those growth assumptions rest the ever-expanding list of promises, giveaways and “fully costed” aspirations of the main parties. In Labour’s case no ordinary person will have to pay a penny more in tax in order for the country to afford just about everything any pressure group has ever asked for. I know we have to wait till later in the week for the final manifesto sign-off but the growth assumptions that must lie behind this package should make for intoxicating reading. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson produces 20,000 police officers here, a sudden ability to try knife cases immediately in an already overwhelmed court system there, and let’s see what he manages to discover he can do for the armed forces. Another aircraft carrier, perhaps. Or twenty frigates. While of course spending far more on the NHS and on schools yet not even taxing the rich, let alone you and me. All this, incidentally, when there are ominous signs of a global economic slowdown.

The premise is a sham. The promises are shams. And so are the candidates. I may not have liked all the party leaders in my lifetime who claimed at elections to be future prime ministers. But in every case, including that of Theresa May, at least I thought they’d make a better prime minister than me. Harder working perhaps, longer-suffering, economically literate, politically more astute. This year, for the first time, I look at them and think even I could make a better job of it. As the quietly emphatic man in the audience of Tuesday night’s debate said to the two leaders: “The whole nation will have watched you both throughout this campaign in utter despair. How can we trust you to have the personal integrity and individual strength of character to look after our nation’s interest?”

The answer with both men, for different reasons, is that we can’t. It’s not just neutrals who think so. This election there will be people campaigning hard for either man who, in their semi-private moments, will tell you their man is a dud.

Johnson first. I was charmed for so long, like so many others. If someone schmoozed me and amused me I was inclined to forgive them the occasional lapse in character. But the result of such indulgence has been the creation of a Trump-lite, low-ethics zone in British politics.

It’s not just that he’s a stranger to the truth. Take Jennifer Arcuri. While Johnson was London mayor, he was clearly close to this young tech entrepreneur. Yet both she and he deny that there was a conflict of interest. She may have received £11,500 from the mayor’s promotional agency and gained access to trade missions but, she says, “there was no favouritism here”.

The trouble is that’s not what a conflict of interest means. Ask McDonald’s why two weeks ago it sacked its CEO, Steve Easterbrook, for having an affair with an employee. Not because he actively engaged in favouritism but because the company “has longstanding rules against conflicts of interest”. Having a close friendship with someone you’re funding is a conflict of interest. Good people don’t do it.

And even as Johnson was thanking the quietly emphatic man for a “very important question”, Conservative HQ decided to make its Twitter account look like an independent fact-checking exercise. Rumbled, the foreign secretary told an interviewer the next day that the voters “didn’t give a toss” about such shenanigans.

The problem with Mr Corbyn is not that you can’t trust him but that you can. Another day, another video of him embracing a public antisemite; another day, another Labour pin-up revealed goading “Zio-nazis”. And what do the Labour moderates in the party do? Run away like Tom Watson or pretend that it just isn’t happening. Two weeks ago, Sally Gimson, a friend of Sir Keir Starmer and a centre-left stalwart, was defenestrated as the Labour candidate for Bassetlaw in a Momentum-led stitch-up. Sir Keir tweeted that she was a good person but then, without further comment, the party waters closed over her.

I’m a man of the centre left. David Gauke, until this autumn one of the Conservative Party’s leading moderates, is a man of the centre right. This election he’ll be standing as an independent. His analysis is that given the extreme state of the two main parties the best we can hope for is a hung parliament with as big a bloc of independents and Liberal Democrats as possible. For all the problems a hung parliament throws up, I agree with him. You don’t like the Lib Dems’ policy of revoking the referendum result? I understand. You’re unsure about Jo Swinson? Makes sense. But I think if you’re a decent, tolerant voter then your priority should be to deny the Johnson/Corbyn cartel the power it seeks and vote accordingly.