Theresa May's top aides take fall for poll debacle, resign

May called the snap election to win a clear mandate for her plan to take Britain out of the EU's single market and customs union in order to cut immigration.

Many turned in frustration in Thursday's election to the opposition Labour Party which, led by veteran leftist Jeremy Corbyn, favours a "softer" Brexit and has promised an end to austerity and university tuition fees.

They've been proved wrong yet again.

"I don't think throwing us into a leadership battle at this moment in time, when we are about to launch into these hard negotiations, would be in the best interests of the country", Evans said.

Timothy and Hill had worked for May when she was interior minister, before she became prime minister in July past year in the chaotic days that followed the Brexit vote, and their influence had increasingly angered senior ministers.

With 649 of 650 seats declared, the Conservatives had won 318 seats.

And Corbyn's critics inside the party remained unconvinced by his leadership.

The Liberal Democrats gained four to win 13 seats.

Former Chancellor George Osborne, perhaps the most likely to do so, stood down from Parliament this election to edit the London Evening Standard.

The UK Independence Party (UKIP) were obliterated - winning no seats with about 2% of the vote (down from more than 12%).

It may well be able to form a minority government with the help of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party in the coming days and weeks, but the prime minister's ability to cling to the keys of Number 10 Downing Street is very much in doubt, and her stated goal of unifying the country behind her ahead of the upcoming Brexit negotiations with European Union leaders is utterly out of reach.

Labour's remarkable comeback election campaign has given rise to some noteworthy facts.

How has the election panned out for the four main parties?

A survey by long-standing Tory supporter Lord Michael Ashcroft on 8 June revealed huge numbers of people who voted Labour only made up their minds to do so in the last weeks and days beforehand. Its lead among voters under 25 was a huge margin of 44 points, almost triple the size of the gap in the previous general election in 2015. A large percentage of this extra youth turnout went to Labour.

A party councillor in Ballymena reportedly claimed Hurricane Katrina, which killed more than 1,500 people in the USA, was God's revenge for New Orleans hosting an annual gay pride event.

With this result, the Conservative Party was left with no choice but to strike a deal to govern with the hard right DUP. With May's "hard Brexit" strategy in ruins, no less than the Financial Times made a direct pitch to Corbyn, declaring that it "is surely time to press the pause button on a "hard" Brexit", and calling for "cross-party support for the closest possible relationship with the European Union". Now the Tories will govern with support of a DUP with strong links to loyalist terror gangs.

As the pre-election polls showed Labour's vote rising, the tabloid press warned a vote for Corbyn's Labour could result in an unstable, chaotic government with links to terrorism.

An online petition in objection to the Tories and DUP forming a minority government has gathered more than 300,000 signatures. Nonetheless, it strikes me that a seismic shift has occurred in British politics. The place where most people actually are. "They didn't want to leave the EU".

"This is the new mainstream. The Conservatives are a responsible party and working with DUP we are able to form a majority". But we'll see. In this environment, it's nearly impossible to forecast what's going to happen in the next half hour, let alone in the next few months.