Ed Balls voted out on General Election night of shocks

Many complained of being bored of the General Election by the time polling day came around, but a series of shock exits is guaranteed to jolt people into paying attention again.

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls looked dumbfounded as he lost his Morley and Outwood constituency to the Conservatives, one of the last seats to declare.

“Any personal disappointment I have at this result is as nothing as compared to the sense of sorrow I have at the result Labour has achieved across the UK tonight,” he said in a sombre speech moments afterwards.

Hours earlier, the first surprise of the night was his colleague Labour’s general election campaign chief Douglas Alexander losing his seat to the SNP.

The MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South is now Mhairi Black, who has become Britain’s youngest MP in centuries at just 20 years old, winning 23,548 votes with a massive 27% swing.

Mr Alexander, who had held the seat since 1997, described it as a “very difficult night” for Labour, acknowledging that the Scottish people had chosen not to put their faith in his party.

Another lost Labour seat in Scotland had belonged to none other than Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy.

Mr Murphy, who lost the East Renfrewshire seat he had held since 1997 to the SNP’s Kirsten Oswald, vowed that his party’s fightback starts tomorrow.

“The fight goes on and our cause continues,” he said.

“The Scottish Labour party has been around for more than a century. A hundred years from tonight we will still be around.”

Yet another blow to Labour was the loss of its safest seat in Scotland – Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath – again, to the SNP.

The seat, formerly held by Gordon Brown, went to Roger Mullin after he won a majority over Kenny Selbie.

There was also a slew of seats lost by the Liberal Democrats, most notably by Simon Hughes, one of the party’s most senior figures who had represented the inner London constituency of Bermondsey and Old Southwark for 32 years.

Speaking after his defeat by Labour, he said: “What we have tried to do is to make sure we have changed the lives forever of hundreds and thousands of people here.

“We helped them when they have been in need and badly served by council, City Hall, Greater London Council or government.”

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander was also a big loser of the night. The Liberal Democrat, who was at the heart of the coalition government, was also ousted from office in the wake of the SNP’s historic landslide.

He was elected as the MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey back in 2005, but lost the title to nationalist Drew Hendry.

Lib Dem business secretary Vince Cable was forced to give up the Twickenham seat he had held since 1997 to the Tories.

“We were hit by a very well organised national campaign based on people’s fear of a Labour government and the Scottish nationalists and we will see in the days that follow what are the implications,” he said afterwards.

“Unfortunately this has been a terrible night for our party all over.”

Lib Dem energy secretary Ed Davey was also ousted from the Kingston and Surbiton seat he had held since 1997 by the Conservatives.

And his colleague, business minister Jo Swinson was forced to relinquish the East Dunbartonshire seat she had held for the Lib Dems since 2005 due to a 16.05% swing to the SNP.

Although many of her Tory colleagues were toasting their success, the same could not be said for Esther McVey, who lost her Wirral West seat to Labour’s Margaret Greenwood.

The defiant Tory said she had not been put off politics, despite facing a “brutal campaign” against her.

“What I want to do is go back to being a politician,” she said. “I’m coming back, I wanna be an MP.”

And Respect leader George Galloway certainly did not look amused as he was ousted from his Bradford West seat, taken by Labour’s Naseem Shah with nearly 20,000 votes.

The controversial Scot also vowed he will return to politics, saying: “I’m going off now to plan my next campaign.”