Public reaction: In London, some were uninterested in Tony Blair's triumph. And some of those that were mixed anger with foreboding, Kathy Sheridan found
It may have been sleep deprivation but the fallout from Election 2005 yesterday seemed to divide Londoners into two camps, one only slightly less testy than the other.
The first quoted various versions of the saying that "the only good government is a bad government in a hell of a fright" and took their comfort there. Having delivered the fright, they could move on, secure in the knowledge that Blair had got his bloody nose.
For the second, much larger contingent, no fright could be frightful enough. So Blair got a battering on his birthday?
"Well, pass the Kleenex," snarled an engineer outside Buckingham Palace. "I'd like to have seen him get a real kick up the arse."
He wasn't there to witness Tony drive in to see the queen?
"You're joking, aren't you?"
He was giving his French friend a tour of the sights and it was merely a coincidence that Tony happened to sweep up the Mall in his grey Jaguar just then, and in through the gold-tipped palace gates. It's possible that he waved, though it was impossible to tell through the darkened, sealed windows. Either way, the coralled crowds didn't even rise to a smattering of polite applause.
"We are only here to see the shanging of the gwards," shrugged a Frenchwoman.
Nonetheless, several helicopters, five paddy wagons, and a swarm of young police officers drafted in for the day from the country were there to see to it that the prime minister's progress to a third term was not rudely interrupted by disillusioned ingrates.
An English nurse, introducing her new American son-in-law to the Ruritanian marches, carriages and high-stepping horses of his adopted country, didn't bother to raise her gaze as the Jaguar passed. She merely fumed: "He knew six months before he told the cabinet and the people that he was going to war. He could do what he liked."
Was she not feeling more cheerful now that his power had been curbed?
"I suppose this is a good day ... Though I'd have hoped for the result to be closer," was the grudging reply.
Another man predicted with surly satisfaction that Blair was going to have to throw out some of "his fancy, pet projects now that his support is shot ... The first to go will be the ID card. Can you believe we were going to have to pay for it ourselves? That was going to cost us £50 to £80, except for immigrants who were going to get it for nothing, which really, really pleased everyone."
"I'd have preferred to see his majority come down to 20 to 30. I'd like to have seen him give some accountability. He does what he likes," said another.
But surely his wings have been clipped? "Yeah, all them loony lefties he has now will keep him in check. All that stuff about fox-hunting - who cares? What no-one's asking is why he went a year early. He didn't have to do it for another year. I'm telling you we're in for a big dip. Iraq was still fresh in people's minds when he called this but he must have weighed it up. There must be a big, black hole in the figures ... a big downturn on the way."
Suspicion runs deep that this government has not been upfront about a possible recession - speculation was rife yesterday about high street collapse, job losses and property market crash - and partly explains the unremitting gloom that even a little prime ministerial blood-letting cannot exorcise.
But there is an odd dichotomy at work here too. Few Labour voters, however disenchanted, felt able to cheer the self-regarding George Galloway's sensational defeat of a Labour candidate in London. Even the most jaundiced winced that his victory was at the expense of Oona King, one of the few black women in parliament, and watched uncomfortably as the Tories by contrast cheered the new member for Windsor, their first black MP.
"I'm anti-war," said a business consultant, watching the seats fall, "but I just can't see what George Galloway is for ... Isn't he just going to be banging on about Iraq for the next four or five years? What good is that going to be for his constituents?"
For many angst-ridden Labourites, watching the parade of losses was a cringe-making reprise of the breast-beating that accompanied the lead-up to the election.
Watching the "Portillo moments" come in reverse was a heart-plunging experience for those who had welcomed that glad, confident morning back in 1997.
They should have been cheering but few could manage it. Who could shake off the nostalgia for that extraordinary moment when Stephen Twigg seized the seat from Portillo in 1997 and triggered the gloating "Were you still up for Portillo?" question that echoed down the years?
Last night, they had to sit and watch Twigg's anguish as a local Tory councillor seized it back. Twigg, who was schools minister, was a true son of Labour: the first person from his comprehensive school to win a place at Oxford and the first openly gay president of the National Union of Students.
Meanwhile, a similar upset was happening in Putney. Tony Colman, the man who had ousted David Mellor in 1997 and become another icon of Labour Triumphant, fell victim to one of the several attractive new faces of the Tory party, Justine Greening.
Sadly for many unconflicted Labourites, they were still up for it. It was only 12.33am.
All over the country, even Labour candidates who were managing to hang in there were getting stiff reminders that the people are sovereign. In Birmingham Sparkbrook & Small Health, a constituency with a large Muslim population, the Labour incumbent saw his majority slashed from over 16,000 to 3,000, by one of George Galloway's party members. Never again will an ethnic minority be taken for granted.
But perhaps the most enduring image of the night came from Sedgefield, constituency of a prime minister who had just won an unprecedented third term for a Labour government. In 1992, when John Major took the victory wave on the biggest night of his political life, he had to stand next to a man with a bucket on his head.
Blair by contrast, stood beside a woman with a outsize white hat emblazoned with the word "BLIAR" and beside her Reg Keys, a man who blames Blair for the death of his son in Iraq, "four days short of his 21st birthday... in a war started in extremely controversial circumstances". Blair looked wretched.
From there, it was on to Trimdon Labour Club, the bastion of old Labour values which in 1997 was packed to the rafters and now was barely three-quarters full.
But that was another era. Who then could have dreamt there could be something called an "Iraq election"?