Tories emerge in poll position

This will go down in history as the election that saw the public become re-engaged with the political process – whether it be as a result of the TV leaders' debates, fears about the recession or lingering anger over the MPs' expenses scandal.

It was borne out by the lengthy queues across Yorkshire last night as last-minute voters swamped polling stations. The chaos seen in Sheffield, Leeds, Hull and other areas will require investigating – and it will be very disappointing if poor organisation prevented people from exercising their right to vote in areas where apathy has often reigned in the past.

Yesterday's unexpectedly high turnout, which added extra uncertainty to the final outcome, will serve that the next Parliament's guiding principles must be transparency, stability and economic probity.

These tenets should also guide the country's political elite in the tense hours ahead as they come to terms with the fact that voters appear not to have given one party a clear mandate for the first time since 1974, even if the Tories end up with the tiniest of majorities when the last vote is counted later today.

Cross-party co-operation works in other countries – Germany is a prime example – and it appears that Britain's leaders are going to have to become accustomed to a more consensual style of politics and finally address the issue of electoral reform.

What became clear is that Gordon Brown does not appear to command the confidence of the country after Labour suffered its heaviest losses since 1983. An unelected leader, he has seen his Commons majority wiped out and it is difficult to see how he can remain PM after the Tories surpassed Labour in terms of seats and the overall share of the vote.

It left Mr Cameron with the strongest card after winning one of the biggest pro-Conservative swings in history. Yet he admitted in Yorkshire last week that he would have "failed" if he did not win an outright majority, especially as he was fighting a leader who had presided over such a deep recession.

Even Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader whose charismatic debating skills threw the election campaign wide open, was in an invidious position, with the likelihood that his party had not matched its early expectations.

Yet, despite his charisma, he potentially faces the decision of a lifetime today – whether to back a Prime Minister who has no mandate, or an untested Conservative leader whose "big society" campaign theme did not resonate with sufficient voters.

It should be a relatively straightforward decision. Having indicated that Labour could not remain in office if it lost the popular vote, he's now duty-bound to honour his word and pave the way for Mr Cameron to attempt to form a government.

The last politician to be in the enviable – or unenviable – position of kingmaker was the Liberal's Jeremy Thorpe 36 years ago.

It was a very different era; Mr Thorpe was able to leave his West Country home incognito before boarding a train from Taunton to London for discussions with Edward Heath, who had lost his majority.

He could do so because there were no 24-hour news channels. Now every move, and every negotiation, will be played out before the cameras – and it will be incumbent on Mr Clegg, as well as the Unionist and Nationalist parties in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, not to put party advantage before the public interest.

If they don't, the potential economic repercussions are too serious to contemplate, and they will not be forgiven by an electorate who have effectively called time on the confrontational nature of British politics.

Consensus is going to have to be the way forward. It's why the next few hours, and days, will prove so critical to the country's immediate future after the public voted for a new kind of politics rather than the continuation of Mr Brown's reign.