Lib Dem ministers, Labour shadow chancellor among election victims

A swath of top politicians including Nigel Farage, Ed Balls, Vince Cable, Danny Alexander and Douglas Alexander have lost their seats in the most sweeping rout of leading political figures in recent history.

Political "decapitation" is talked about often in British politics but it rarely happens on this scale. "Even 1997 is going to look pale by comparison," says Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, referring to Tony Blair's victory when defence secretary Michael Portillo saw his majority of 15,563 evaporate.

It was in Scotland, where the SNP swept the board, that the dramatic decapitations began. "We have never before lost a whole cohort of senior figures in the way we're going to in Scotland," says Prof Bale.

The first senior figure to lose his seat was Douglas Alexander, shadow foreign secretary, who had held his seat west of Glasgow since the 1990s. His defeat to Mhairi Black, a 20-year-old student, reading politics at Glasgow University, at roughly 2.30am was a particular humiliation given that he had been the chairman of Labour's national election campaign.

Danny Alexander, Lib Dem chief secretary to the Treasury, lost his supposedly safe seat of Inverness, by a huge margin of 10,000 votes, paying the price for his high-profile role in the coalition.

In a further blow to Labour, Jim Murphy, who recently became Labour's leader in Scotland, lost his seat in once rock-solid neighbouring East Renfrewshire.

Mr Murphy, a veteran force in Scottish politics, was a prominent figure in the referendum campaign on independence last September when the SNP were defeated.

The SNP surge also toppled Charles Kennedy, former Lib Dem leader, in the Highlands seat of Ross, Skye and Lochaber. Mr Kennedy had held the seat since 1983.

Sir Menzies Campbell, another former Lib Dem leader, had been 13 points behind the nationalists in his seat of East Fife and Jo Swinson, a Lib Dem business minister, failed to retain East Dunbartonshire.

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There were numerous defeats for senior figures in England as well, the most surprising being the Lib Dem's Mr Cable and Labour's Mr Balls.

Mr Cable, the business secretary who had held the seat of Twickenham since 1997, was toppled by Tania Mathias, a medical doctor, after the Tories made the Middlesex seat a key target.

Mr Balls lost his West Yorkshire seat of Morley and Outwood to the Conservatives by just 422 votes. Looking shaken, his voice cracking, the shadow chancellor said his personal disappointment was "as nothing" compared to his sadness at Labour's national defeat.

Ed Davey, former energy secretary, lost his seat in the suburban London seat of Kingston to the Tories. Mr Davey had been seen as a likely candidate in any future leadership contest for the Lib Dems.

Another major Lib Dem defeat was Simon Hughes, former justice minister and a former party deputy leader, who had held the south London seat of Bermondsey since 1983.

Ukip, the anti-Brussels party, won just one seat in the Westminster parliament.

Mr Farage resigned as leader of Ukip after he lost in the Kent seat of Thanet South, finishing second to Conservative party candidate Craig Mackinlay, a former Ukip activist.

Mark Reckless, a former Tory MP who defected to Nigel Farage's party and was re-elected in Rochester & Strood in a by-election, lost his seat.

The only senior Conservative to lose their seat was Esther McVey, employment minister, who had a majority of just 2,436 in Wirral West - making her the only Tory MP in Merseyside. Labour had made her seat one of its targets, campaigning against the coalition's welfare cuts.

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