Watch Britain's amazing national election unfold in under 4 minutes, courtesy of BBC News

This is what the British election looked like on TV

(Image credit: BBC/YouTube)

published 8 May 2015

Thursday's national election in the United Kingdom was projected to be close. It wasn't. The first sign of a wave election was the exit polls, which showed Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party winning a plurality of Parliament's 650 seats. The actual results were much worse for opposition leader Ed Miliband and his Labour Party, and worse still for the Liberal Democrats. According to BBC News projections, the Conservatives will have a majority of 329 seats, a gain of 22, while Labour lost 25 seats, to 233, and the Liberal Democrats dropped to just 8, a loss of 46 seats. The Scottish Nationalist Party nearly wiped out Labour in Scotland, becoming the third-largest bloc in Parliament. If those numbers are a little dry for you, BBC News compiled some of the more dramatic moments on TV, telling the story of the election night in chronological order. If you are just waking up, this is what you missed, in 3 minutes, 39 seconds. —Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.