This election has been perhaps the most shocking in decades. After months of deadlocked polls – with almost no recorded change in public opinion from the beginning to the end of the campaign - those who had been waiting in anticipation for a party to pull ahead finally resigned themselves to what seemed like an inevitability: a hugely fragmented electorate, weeks of negotiations and a coalition shakier than the last.
Not so. When the exit poll was released at 10 o’clock last night, it seemed that something had gone dramatically wrong - perhaps the methodology? It in no way reflected the last months of polling. Maybe Ipsos Mori had been pushed off of its game by the new prominence of smaller parties? The Tories were predicted to gain seats, Labour to barely challenge them - and the Liberal Democrats to be smashed to tiny little pieces. Lord Ashdown, former Lib Dem leader, was so scornful that he promised to “publicly eat his hat” should the poll be on target.
Lord Ashdown will be publicly eating his hat.
Not only did the Conservatives increase their number of seats - the first time an incumbent government has done so since Maggie Thatcher’s prime in the 1980s - but they’ve won the first Tory majority in Westminster since 1992, even following five years of economic hardship.
Perhaps even more shocking than the Conservative win (certainly more so than the SNP’s 56 seats in Scotland - we all saw that coming) is the Lib Dem loss. As coalition partner to the Tory government, it’s no surprise that they lost seats - especially considering Clegg’s well documented popularity - but the loss that they faced was astronomical.
Once the third largest party in Parliament, the Lib Dems have taken a 48-seat hit… Leaving them with only 8. One of the many to go was our very own Colchester constituency - noted Lib Dem stronghold, and their only seat in Essex. Sir Bob, incumbent of 23 years, lost his 7000 majority to the newly elected Will Quince. And thus we became a teeny-tiny part of the whopping great blue sea that is East Anglia.
The victories won by David Cameron and Nicola Sturgeon have been cut out of their closest political partners. The relatively likely partnership between the SNP and Labour became impossible due to Labour’s heavy losses in Scotland, at the hands of the Nationalists. The Conservatives’ ruthless seat targeting techniques bit right into the homeland of their former coalition partners. And backstage, in results up and down the country, UKIP changed the game for outcomes by cutting into both the working class demographic of the Labour party, and the Euro-sceptic wing of the Tories.
Never has an election seen so many prominent politicians step down. High-profile Labour losses include Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, Shadow Foreign Secretary and campaign co-ordinator Douglas Alexander (who lost to a twenty-year old SNP candidate!), and Jim Murphy, leader of Labour in Scotland.
The Lib Dems were even more unfortunate - big name politicians losing seats to rivals include Vince Cable, Business Secretary; Danny Alexander, Chief Deputy to the Treasury; Energy Secretary Ed Davey; former deputy leader Simon Hughes; and senior member Charles Kennedy.
The most headline party shake-ups were of course the leaders. Farage, thankfully beaten in South Thanet by over 2000 votes, has resigned as promised. Clegg and Miliband, though duly elected, have resigned over their losses. Of the parties with multiple seats, the only remaining leaders are David Cameron and Nicola Sturgeon - though the SNP will be led by Alex Salmond in Westminster. Assuming Cameron resigns after this term in Number Ten - widely held to be likely - the next General Election we see will be filled with entirely fresh faces.
In the meantime, as the Tories begin the preparations for a referendum on the EU, and face off with a Scotland that is wholly unrepresented in government, the remaining political parties (especially Labour) will have to go about electing new leaders and determining a new agenda.
Will we see a return of a Blairite New Labour? What will the SNP do now that they are no longer kingmakers? Will Douglas Carswell get lonely up in Westminster by himself? Could David Cameron be the Prime Minister that loses both Scotland and Europe? Is Liberal England dead for good? We can only wait.
