Those who stayed awake saw the earthquake for themselves. Those that slept through the night arose on Friday to glimpse a landscape changed utterly. Its contours were redrawn, its borders painted in newly vivid colours. And, most spectacularly, some of the most familiar human landmarks were suddenly gone, toppled like statues in a street revolution.

By lunchtime, Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage – household names for several years, one a deputy prime minister, another a man who until 10pm on Thursday believed he was within reach of Downing Street – had all resigned, their names to be attached forevermore to the words “former leader”. It was as if they had all fallen victim not to an act of nature or a rampaging mob but a military plan hatched at Conservative headquarters: a decapitation strategy.

Except it was not just the heads that were severed. The entire leadership echelons of both Labour and the Liberal Democrats were gutted. The duo who would have served as the most senior lieutenants to a Prime Minister Miliband – Douglas Alexander and Ed Balls – were not only denied the Foreign Office and Exchequer that the polls had promised were within their grasp; they were also banished from parliament altogether.