The SNP has obliterated Labour in its former Scottish heartland in a landslide victory which will herald a new era in politics north and south of the border.
The scale of the swing to Nicola Sturgeon’s party sent shockwaves through Britain despite major gains having been predicted.
One by one they fell, in every corner of Scotland.
First Cathy Jamieson, then Labour’s election co-ordinator Douglas Alexander lost to 20-year-old Mhairi Black, and soon after Scottish leader Jim Murphy followed him out the exit door.
Shadow Scottish secretary Margaret Curran was among those defeated as the SNP won a clean sweep in Glasgow, a city which voted Yes to independence last year but where the Nationalists had never won a seat at a general election in the past.
General Election 2015: Live results across Scotland
Even Gordon Brown’s former Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency went from red to yellow.
The Liberal Democrats suffered their own catastrophe, with senior figures including Business Minister Jo Swinson, Sir Robert Smith and John Thurso among the casualties.
Chief Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander and former party leader Charles Kennedy were also facing defeat.
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Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael narrowly survived – by 817 votes – in Orkney and Shetland, the party’s safest seat in the UK, and could now find himself as a contender to take over from Nick Clegg if the Lib Dem leader is forced out.
The results in Scotland overshadowed the apparent victory of David Cameron’s Conservatives south of the border, and created fresh doubt over the future of the Union.
The few gains Labour made in England were more than cancelled out by its historic losses in Scotland, leaving Ed Miliband’s leadership in tatters.
Alex Salmond described it as an “electoral tsunami”, and the former first minister ensured he would ride the crest of that wave as he secured his return to Westminster as MP for Gordon.
Mr Murphy was facing growing calls to quit as Scottish Labour leader, but remained defiant.
“The fight goes on and our cause continues,” he said. “I know hundreds of thousands of Scots still believe in the progressive policies the Labour party stands for.
“The Scottish Labour Party has been around for more than a century. A hundred years from tonight we will still be around.
“Scotland needs a strong Labour Party and our fightback starts tomorrow morning.”
Ms Sturgeon arrived at the Glasgow count to cheers from euphoric party activists and supporters.
She insisted she still believed the SNP and Labour should work together in the event of an anti-Tory majority in the Commons.
The first minister said: “My position remains as it was during the campaign, if the parliamentary arithmetic means there is an anti-Tory majority, the SNP stands ready and willing to work with Labour to lock David Cameron out of Downing Street.
“If that proves not to be the case because Labour failed to beat the Conservatives in England, then SNP MPs will go to Westminster to stand up for Scotland and to protect Scotland against a Tory government, but I still hope we can have a situation where we can lock David Cameron out of Downing Street.”
There was speculation that the enlarged group of Nationalist MPs could demand the reopening of the Smith Commission agreement on devolution.
Mr Carmichael said: “We will see what demands come forward. We have always in the past built constitutional change by consensus.
“The SNP themselves were part of that Smith process. That is what they agreed.”