Labour failed. The Liberal Democrats were massacred. The United Kingdom Independence Party was thwarted, taking around 12% of the vote but just a single constituency (another reason to regard Britain’s electoral system as hopelessly decrepit). When the votes were counted in Britain’s general election last night, there were lots of losers—but none more humiliated than the pollsters, who until the end were predicting a hung parliament, in which Ed Miliband, Labour’s now-doomed leader, seemed as likely to become prime minister as David Cameron. Instead, as the final results trickled in, Mr Cameron’s Conservatives seem set for a thin but astonishing overall majority, securing another five years in government, this time without the need for coalition partners. The other triumphant victors were the separatist Scottish National Party, who swept all but three of Scotland’s 59 seats. That Scottish landslide may in time mean the union itself ranks among last night’s victims.