IN what was an electoral earthquake, the political landscape of the United Kingdom was transformed on May 7. For weeks, opinion polls had been telling us that Labour and the Tories were in a virtual deadlock. On election day, The Guardian informed readers that its ‘poll of polls’ — the average of all opinion polls — showed the two major parties to be in a dead heat at 34 per cent.

By law, exit polls and forecasts about the result cannot be discussed by the media until polls close at 10pm on the election day. At that time, the whole country switched on the BBC special election broadcast to hear David Dimbleby, the legendary veteran of Question Time and many election broadcasts, tell us which way the wind was blowing. And when he cited the BBC exit poll as predicting the Conservative Party to get 316 seats, his panellists were as stunned as his huge audience.

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To put this in context, just a day earlier, the party had been tipped to win around 280 seats, far short of the 326 it would need for a majority. Not only did the exit poll turn earlier projections on their head, it showed Labour far behind at 230. And in a terrible day for the Liberal Democrats, their number of seats was predicted to shrink from 58 to just 10.

The Scottish National Party, tipped to win 50 out of 59 seats allocated to Scotland, were shown to grab as many as 58; in the final tally, they were at 56, a huge improvement over the six they had in 2010 election. All of SNP gains came at Labour’s expense.

In fact, the exit poll was so stunning that Paddy Ashdown, a senior Lib Dem figure, said on TV that if these new figures were accurate, he would eat his hat. After the final results proved to be an underestimate of the Tory victory, and showed the Lib Dems at only eight seats, many tweeted photoshopped images of Ashdown eating a hat. But one punter did well by doubling his bet of 88,000 pounds at even money on Cameron.

In fact, even the bookmakers didn’t call the election: although they did make the Conservatives marginal favourites, there was little to choose between the odds on Miliband and Cameron. So how did the pollsters get it all so terribly wrong? Already the professional association of pollsters has launched an inquiry into this embarrassing fiasco.

One reason pundits are putting forward is the fact that many either made up their minds, or changed them, at the last minute. Cameron had been hammering away at the possibility that Labour would be vulnerable to SNP blackmail in a bid to achieve power. Apparently, this tactic was effective in changing minds. Another area of Labour weakness was the perception that it would again spend recklessly, and undo the fiscal discipline the Tory-led coalition had instilled. And finally, voters were persuaded by Cameron’s leadership versus the perception that Miliband was a weak, left-wing politician under the influence of labour unions.

Whatever the reasons for the disastrously wrong opinion polls, the fact is that political parties as well as pundits were blindsided by them. So when the final results were before us, and the extent of the Tory victory revealed, politicians as well as their supporters were stunned. The result has claimed three scalps of party leaders: Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage have all stood down. The latter has left himself a way back in by saying he would consider putting his name forward in the Ukip leadership election.

There are lessons here for Pakistan’s permanent party leaders. For instance, the Pakistan Peoples Party was reduced from a national party to a small regional presence in the 2013 election, and yet there has been no resignation by any of the party’s leadership, and nor is there any sign of remorse or introspection.

The election’s outcome was greeted by a rise in the stock market as well in the value of the pound sterling. I am sure many bottles of champagne were opened in the boardrooms of banks as Labour had said it would tighten regulations of the financial markets.

So what’s ahead for Cameron these next five years? He now has to contend with a strong SNP presence in parliament consisting of 56 MPs clamouring for greater powers and resources for Edinburgh. As Alex Salmond, the ex-leader of the party said: “The Scottish lion has roared.” Easily the most impressive political performance came from Nicola Sturgeon, Salmond’s successor. In the longer term, Scottish demands for independence might well resurface, but for now, the SNP will be satisfied with a bigger slice of the cake.

An even more pressing short-term challenge comes from Cameron’s pledge to hold a referendum in 2017 to decide Britain’s membership in the European Union. Apart from being Ukip’s demand, this position is echoed among many Tory anti-immigrant backbenchers.

So in the next two years, the debate over continued EU membership will spook big business and send jitters in the financial markets. Already, several large multinational companies have announced they will shift their production facilities and regional headquarters to EU countries if the UK votes to leave the EU.

In his resignation speech, Farage mentioned the unfairness of the electoral system. He had good reason to feel aggrieved: his party only got one seat although it won 12.8pc of the popular vote. However, it stood second in 120 constituencies, and was third in another 364. It would appear to have a good chance for an enlarged parliamentary presence in 2020. Foe me, the election proved one thing: not to rely on opinion polls as people do not always reveal their true intentions before the election day.

Published in Dawn, May 11th, 2015

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