A new dawn has broken, then. For an apocalypse, it felt a little flat. Perhaps Tory wipeouts, like rock music, can only be properly experienced before you turn 30. There were results in the small hours of Friday morning that were objectively bigger than Michael Portillo losing Enfield Southgate, but somehow it remains uneclipsed. 

Perhaps this was because the result had been so widely forecast that the exit poll felt anticlimactic. In 1997 it seemed a total shock. In 2024 it was in the middle of expectations, and better for the Conservatives than many of them had feared. Perhaps it was also the disquieting effect of the results around the fringes, which hinted at huge anger among voters who feel mainstream parties no longer speak for them. 

The great result would come after many of us who had been up all night had dropped off, but pleasingly in time for Friday’s early risers. Liz Truss’s career ended with a record-breaking swing to Labour in the Tory stronghold of South West Norfolk. Some MPs talk of having a personal vote. She, it turns out, has one too, just not in the way it’s usually meant. To the end, she was graceless, keeping the hall waiting for her to make her way to the stage, leaving without making a concession speech. Let’s be generous and contemplate that her role in all this may finally be sinking in. 

But that was much later. In the early part of the night we learned that landslides come like bankruptcies: gradually and then suddenly. For hours after the exit poll, there was nothing much to see. A bare handful of results in the North East which showed big swings away from the Conservatives, both to Labour and Reform. Shots of Nigel Farage, at this stage predicted to win a dozen seats, cackling. Conservative spokesfodder trying to make the best of it. 

It wasn’t until 2am that things started to heat up. Here was Rachel Reeves, beaming in a most uncharacteristic way. Her cheeks were glowing. Was she crying? The news came through that Dan Jarvis, predicted in the exit poll as certain to lose to Reform, had held on fairly comfortably. There may be a ceiling to their appeal.

Though not everywhere. Twenty minutes later, we went to see Lee Anderson holding his seat in Ashfield. “This is the capital of common sense,” he declared. “I want my country back!” Though still he won’t tell us who from. 

Moments after that, we learned George Galloway had lost his seat in Rochdale. Given the number of independent pro-Gaza victories over Labour that were to come, this feels like a bad result for Gorgeous George. Neil Kinnock, watching in a studio, made no attempt to conceal his delight. “I’ve known him since 1983,” he explained, slowing to emphasise each word. “And. He. Is. Repellent.”

The BBC coverage seemed, as it always does, to have been designed by someone who hates elections and can’t see the point of them. As the results began to trickle in, we weren’t taken to them, with the producers instead taking us to join Jeremy Vine running around incomprehensible graphics. They had converted a theatre into a living room for a watch-along podcast recording. Guys, as ever, please do less, but better. Co-host Clive Myrie seemed slightly baffled by the whole democratic process, explaining to viewers that the SNP’s bad night meant Scotland would have a diminished voice in Parliament. That is certainly what the Nats want people to believe, but Scotland will in fact have exactly the same number of MPs as it did a month ago. They just won’t be asking for an independence referendum five times a day. 

The channel did however redeem itself by pointing a camera at Ric Holden, the Tory chairman, who was waiting for the results of a tight recount in the Essex seat to which he fled when it became clear that Labour’s north eastern heartlands weren’t quite as broken as we had been led to believe. For the next couple of hours, HoldenCam would show him staring into space, scribbling on bits of paper, wandering over to stare at the piles of votes. It was utterly compelling.

At 3am we got our first words from Keir Starmer in his constituency. “You have voted,” he told the country. “It is now time for us to deliver.” Then he shook hands with a giant red Muppet and walked off the stage. Andrew Feinstein, his Corbynite challenger, was also there. 

Now we were getting the first scalps. Grant Shapps out. Iain Duncan Smith hanging on. He marked his victory, pleasingly, by coughing. An hour later he popped up on the BBC to explain that it was his personal qualities, rather than a split in the Labour vote, that got him over the line. Is it too much to hope that the Conservatives agree, and give him a second chance as leader?

Farage, we were told, had left the restaurant where he had been waiting for his result, and we saw him finally win a seat in Parliament. “There is a massive gap on the centre right in British politics and we are going  to fill it,” he declared. This may come as a surprise to people who thought they were on the centre right, but it will be exciting to see David Gauke and Rory Stewart standing for Reform at the next election.

Here was Suella Braverman, keeping her seat. “There is only one thing that I can say,” she told voters. “Sorry. I’m sorry that my party didn’t listen to you.”

Then, just when we needed it most, HoldenCam failed, meaning we were unable to go to his result. It turned out he’d won by a handful of votes. In 1992 it was said that then-chairman Chris Patten had won the Conservatives the election at the cost of his own seat. Holden has done the opposite. It will be interesting to see which colony he gets to govern. Perhaps we should consult his former colleagues. They might be able to suggest an Atlantic island or two.

And by 5am it was all over. Rishi Sunak appeared at his count, to announce that Labour had won. “The British people have delivered a sobering victory and there is much to reflect on,” he said, looking crushed. “I am sorry.”

There was no time to grieve, because Jacob Rees-Mogg was losing his seat. What would he say? We never found out because, in a harbinger of the irrelevance to come, it was suddenly less interesting than something the Labour Party was doing elsewhere. Starmer was giving his victory speech. 

“It feels good,” he told party members, “I have to be honest.” As he spoke, we could see the Labour seat total ticking upwards at pace. “A weight has been lifted. A burden finally removed from the shoulders of this great nation.”