Opinion polls got it spectacularly wrong: the UK election was no close-run thing but an overwhelming victory for the Conservative Party and a hugely damaging defeat for Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
Even though the Conservative majority is wafer thin, it is nevertheless a major victory for David Cameron who saw his party increase its share of both the popular vote and its number of seats in Parliament. More importantly for him, he can govern on his own for the first time.
The Liberal Democrats have been virtually wiped out from the House of Commons. Given the wave of nationalism that swept the county, outgoing Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg was right to say that “fear and grievance have won” and “liberalism lost”.
However, there’s no denying the party paid a high price for governing in coalition with the Conservatives.
Labour, on the other hand, has been almost eliminated from Scotland, where the Scottish National Party won nearly all the parliamentary seats.
It was a terrible day for Labour and for its much-maligned leader, Ed Multiband, as the party did much worse than expected and the reality is that it will never be elected to office unless its regains lost ground in Scotland. This will be a mighty task.
The Conservatives will now begin to govern the UK alone for the first time in nearly 20 years but it won’t be plain sailing as Mr Cameron will have a wafer thin majority and some stormy waters ahead in the form of controversial legislation and, of course, the promise of a referendum on Britain’s EU membership.
What kind of changes to Britain’s terms of membership Mr Cameron’s fellow EU leaders will be willing to agree to still has to be seen and, should Brussels not satisfy the majority of the Conservative Party, this could dramatically increase the chances of voters choosing to leave the EU.
Thursday’s election, after all, saw the Eurosceptic Ukip become the third largest party in terms of the popular vote – though it received only a couple of seats and, significantly, Nigel Farrage failed to make it to Parliament – so there is without doubt a worrying trend in the UK which is hostile to the country’s membership of the EU.
An UK exit from the EU would be disastrous both politically and economically for Britain and would without doubt have a negative effect on the rest of the bloc, including Malta.
And should British voters decide to leave the EU, this would surely rekindle the Scottish independence debate, and lead to calls for Scotland to leave the UK. Opinion polls have repeatedly shown that the Scottish people do not want to leave the EU and an UK exit from the European bloc could well lead to Scotland, and probably Wales too, seeking independence and applying for EU membership.
It is no exaggeration to say that the future of the UK as a unitary State is at stake and Mr Cameron will have to perform a careful balancing act over the next few years.
He must try to get a good deal from Brussels without going too far and then must persuade the electorate to vote in favour of remaining within the EU.
That is a big challenge but equally daunting is the task ahead of Labour, in particular, to rebuilt.
Though the wave of Scottish nationalism cannot be put down to Mr Miliband, there was a feeling the minute he beat his brother to the post that the party had made the wrong choice. They cannot afford to make the same mistake again.