Michael Howard did a better job at smiling and claimed that the Conservatives had made progress. In fact they had polled no better than in 2001 and had won fewer seats than Labour did under Michael Foot in the massacre of 1983, a reality Howard recognised by resigning within hours.

Charles Kennedy’s Liberal Democrats increased their parliamentary representation by about a fifth, but that is not enough to transform their position. Since doubling their seats in 1997, progress has been slow.

The man with most to celebrate was Gordon Brown. Labour’s majority over the Conservatives remains huge, which makes it highly likely that it will win again in 2009. That is an ideal scenario for the man who believes that he will move into No 10 during this parliament.

Brown is credited with having played a big role in securing Labour’s historic third election win in a row. In truth we shall never know whether seeing Blair and Brown apparently joined at the hip during the campaign had any effect on its outcome.

With his eager support for the prime minister (even on Iraq) the chancellor looked loyal and magnanimous, a remarkable achievement for a sulky man who before the campaign would not even pick up the telephone to his boss.

Blair was evidently shaken by the election result. He likes to be popular and must be stung by the collapse in Labour’s vote. Hence that lugubrious victor’s speech in Sedgefield.

His downbeat tone was a miscalculation because it suggested that Labour had done worse than it had. Before the election some commentators had suggested that if Blair won by 70 seats or more he would be safe from a challenge by Brown. As luck would have it he fell just short. So Labour politicians began the battle of spin at once and figures such as Lord Hattersley argued that the result was so disappointing that Blair should quickly make way for Brown. Blair’s own demeanour suggested that Hattersley was right.

But given how much support Labour lost it was extraordinary that the Tories’ share of the poll hardly rose. Indeed, since at this election the United Kingdom Independence party was less of a threat than in 1997 or 2001, the Conservatives could be argued to have done even worse than last time.

When John Major was defeated eight years ago no Tory would have imagined that two elections later the party would still not have clawed back even to 200 seats or one third of the poll. The party’s gains this time were mainly in southeast England. The failure to make much progress elsewhere makes it particularly hard to see how it could win in 2009.

In the game of reducing expectations, some Tories briefed ahead of the election that 200 seats would be a good score. It was not achieved. Anyway the test that mattered was whether the party would be in a position to win next time. By that measure the result is a failure. That must have weighed with Howard.

The Conservatives should be grateful for small mercies. Had they not gained seats (by a fluke of the electoral system) it would be more evident that in percentage terms the Liberal Democrats had moved closer to their eventual aim of overtaking the Tories. So there is more to Kennedy’s claim to offer “the real alternative” than his modest gain of parliamentary seats would suggest.

Those in the Labour party who are hostile to Blair claim that he has passed from being an electoral asset to a liability. That is fatuous, given his unprecedented success in winning elections for Labour.