Verdict: Electorate left with a cliffhanger that would flatter Jeffrey Archer

A beleaguered Prime Minister suffering more losses than any Labour administration for two generations, clinging to the electoral wreckage in a last-ditch attempt to stay in office, an Opposition leader gaining more seats from Labour than Mrs Thatcher in 1979 and yet still denied the keys to Downing Street, and a bemused Liberal Democrat leader wondering just what had happened to the euphoria that had swept through his party since that first TV debate as support slipped away over the last 48 hours.

The Conservative Party's achievements are substantial – picking up an extra 100 seats while Labour lost more MPs than at any election since 1931, with their second lowest vote share since 1918.

Overall, at 5.1 per cent, the swing from Labour to Tory is only just lower than that which swept Mrs Thatcher to power, but it leaves the party tantalisingly short of outright victory.

Had it been replicated nationally, the 6.6 per cent swing in Yorkshire would have sufficed, and the party will be pleased with its tally of eight extra seats at Labour's expense, many in West Yorkshire, along with the further two from Liberal Democrats.

Capturing Colne Valley, Calder Valley, Cleethorpes, Brigg and Goole, Dewsbury, Keighley, Elmet and Rothwell, and Pudsey – all but two with swings in excess of seven per cent – means that the electoral map is now largely coloured an unbroken blue from Richmond in the north to the outskirts of Labour's remaining heartland in South Yorkshire.

However, some did escape the Tory march through the central belt of the region and Bradford West and Halifax remain Labour. Strong campaigns and distinctive local issues still affect outcomes in individual constituencies.

The fate of the Liberal Democrats locally perhaps best illustrates the political twists and turns of Thursday night.

The loss of the new York Outer and Harrogate and Knaresborough, the latter with a swing from Liberal Democrat to Tory of more than nine per cent, was offset by the satisfaction of taking Bradford East and large increases in both Nick Clegg's majority in Sheffield Hallam and Greg Mulholland's in Leeds North West.

Had the swing from Labour in the latter been matched in Sheffield Central, they would have scraped home there, too.

With an indecisive outcome, and furore over some voters being unable to cast their votes at overcrowded polling stations, it is inevitable that voting reform has quickly emerged as a key item in post-election musings.

True proportional representation would benefit the Liberal Democrats considerably and would almost certainly mean that no single party would win again.

n Prof Colin Mellors is a political scientist at the University of York.