From left, Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and David Cameron, at the VE Day 70th anniversary service. Photo / AP
From left, Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and David Cameron, at the VE Day 70th anniversary service. Photo / AP
Shoulder to shoulder with David Cameron at the Cenotaph because of a cruel quirk of timing, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg carried out their final duty as party leaders hours after they were humiliated in the most unexpected election result in decades.
David Cameron confounded all expectations, including his own, by sweeping back into power with an overall Commons majority of 12, with 331 seats to Labour's 232. The Lib Dems retained just eight seats.
Cameron used his first speech as a majority leader to promise to govern Britain as "one nation, one UK, in the interests of all its people" after SNP gained 56 of the 59 Westminster seats in Scotland.
The unprecedented result put the future of the Union in serious doubt and Cameron acted swiftly to extend the hand of friendship to Scottish Nationalists by promising to "respect" the nearly 1.5 million people north of the border who voted for Nicola Sturgeon's party.
He pledged to make Scotland the "strongest devolved Government anywhere in the world".
By the time he gave his victory speech outside Downing St, his three main opponents had been decapitated after a night of bloodletting: Miliband and Clegg had resigned, together with Ukip's Nigel Farage, who failed to win election to Parliament.
Before they could leave the stage, however, protocol forced Miliband and Clegg to appear on television with Cameron, putting on a united front as they laid wreaths at the Cenotaph in the first of the weekend's VE Day 70th anniversary events.
In a general election result that overturned every pre-election poll:
• Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, became the biggest casualty as he lost his seat in Labour's worst showing since 1983. Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary and Jim Murphy, the Labour leader in Scotland, were other major casualties as Labour lost 26 seats overall.
• The Lib Dems were almost obliterated, going from 57 seats to eight. Nick Clegg said the result had been more "crushing and unkind" than his worst fears.
• Miliband said he was "truly sorry" as he quit as Labour leader, triggering a leadership battle in which Andy Burnham emerged as the early favourite.
• Ukip had more votes than the SNP and the Lib Dems combined but won just one constituency, which prompted Nigel Farage's resignation as leader and his immediate calls for electoral reform.
• Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission President, said he would examine in a "very polite, friendly and objective way" any proposals that the UK puts forward, to try to fend off Britain's exit from the EU in the 2017 referendum.
Mhairi Black. Photo / AP
Cameron's announcement yesterday that the key Government departments would remain in the same hands indicated that he wants to plot a steady course.
The Queen, who had been left off the royal roster at the Cenotaph in expectation of coalition talks raging on during the day, was called back from Windsor unexpectedly early.
If it was bad for Labour, it was cataclysmic for the Lib Dems. The party lost its deposit in 335 seats, beaten into fourth and fifth place in a succession of constituencies.
The Tories are expected to press ahead with changes to the constituency boundaries, which could guarantee Cameron's party an extra 20 seats in the next general election.
There will also be a new British Bill of Rights and a toughened up Communications Data Bill - dubbed the Snoopers' Charter - dramatically increasing the powers given to security services against terrorists.
The plans were blocked by the Lib Dems during the Coalition.
There are growing concerns that Sturgeon will attempt to force a second independence referendum.
Meanwhile, 20-year-old politics student Mhairi Black has become the youngest MP in almost 350 years after securing the biggest scalp in Scotland.
The Scottish Nationalist overturned a majority of more than 16,000 to remove Douglas Alexander, Labour's shadow foreign secretary.
She was long schooled in her disdain for "new Labour", and her loathing of Baroness Thatcher, by her father Alan, a 55-year-old retired teacher whom she said was once a "diehard" Labour man.
Black emerged as a firebrand advocate of independence during last year's referendum campaign after giving up her part-time job in the Pizza Mario chip shop.
