Ed Miliband has resigned as leader of the Labour party after their crushing General Election defeat.
Heading into the vote, Mr Miliband had high hopes of becoming Prime Minister, with many pollsters suggesting that Labour could well be in a position to form a government by doing deals with the likes of the SNP or others.
However, it turned out to be a terrible night for Labour across the UK particularly in Scotland, where his party could only muster one MP in the face of a massive SNP surge.
As the night wore on, it became clear that the Conservatives would not only win but they would win a small outright majority, instantly raising question marks about Labour’s inability to run the Tories close.
And when shadow chancellor Ed Balls lost his Morley and Outwood seat following a recount, the writing was on the wall for Mr Miliband as the clamour for change at the top of the Labour leadership gathered pace.
“I take absolute and total responsibility for the result and I’m so sorry for all of those colleagues who lost their seats,” he said in his resignation speech.
“They are friends, colleagues and standard bearers for our party – they always have been and always will.
“I’m truly sorry we did not win this election, we done my best for nearly five years, and now the party needs to show their responsibility – not mourn this defeat.
“We’ve come back before and this party will come back again.
“I believe there is more that unites us that divides us in the United Kingdom, and all of us need to rise to the challenge of keeping our country together.”
Mr Miliband paid a fulsome tribute to Harriet Harman, who will take over asleader during the coming election contest, as the “best deputy leader anyonecould hope for”.
And he said: “We have come back before and this party will come back again.”
Mr Miliband addressed an audience of noisy and passionate activists at a Westminster venue.
He told them he was looking forward to spending more time with his family and he thanked the British people for their involvement in his campaign.
“Thank you for the selfies, thank you for the support,” he said.
“And thank you for the most unlikely cult of the 21st century – Milifandom.”
After he won his seat just hours before, Mr Miliband appeared to concede defeat after the scale of the Labour losses – which eventually resulted in the party’s worst result since 1987.
“This has clearly been a very disappointing and difficult night for the Labour Party, we haven’t made the gains we wanted in England and Wales and in Scotland, we have seen a surge of nationalism overwhelm our party.
“Now I want to say to all our dedicated and decent colleagues in Scotland who have lost their seats that I am deeply sorry about what has happened.
“The next government has a huge responsibility, it has a huge responsibility in facing the difficult task of keeping our country together.”
Alastair Campbell, the former New Labour spin doctor, said that in the wake of the defeat it was time for Labour to have an existential debate about its direction, laying down the gauntlet to a new generation of MPs to lead it.
He told Sky News: “This defeat is so bad for us that it is much more than just being about the leader.
“I think the Labour Party has to have the debate that we have frankly been avoiding since Tony Blair went in 2007. We are still rather trapped in the prism of the Blair/Brown thing and I am hoping that out of that debate comes a real sense of direction and purpose that I think is going to have to come from a new generation.”
Mr Campbell described the Scottish results as “a calamity” for the party and “potentially … for the UK” but cautioned against the party lurching to the left.
He said that he had heard veteran left wingers Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone bemoaning that the party had not gone far enough, but added: “We have heard all that before. It is much, much more complicated.”
He added: “We have got to have a debate about who we are, what we stand for, and our relevance to the modern world.”
The tone of Labour’s night was set in Scotland where strong Labour majorities, like the one in former Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath seat, were swept away by the Nationalist tide.
Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy amd campaign chief Douglas Alexander were also among the big name casualties.
Mr Murphy has also faced calls to resign after their wipeout north of the border, although he remained defiant despite losing his East Renfrewshire seat and vowed to stay on.
Suggesting that the fightback starts now, Mr Murphy said: “The party that has traditionally been the tireless champion of the underdog now finds itself in the position of being the underdog.”
Elsewhere in Scotland, the SNP took a clean sweep in Tayside and Fife, while the biggest swing to the Nationalists was in Glasgow South West where there was a massive 35% swing from Labour to the SNP as Christopher Stephens more than quadrupled the SNP vote.