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We've listed the 10 biggest political beasts who lost their seats on Thursday here.
10. Jo Swinson - Lib Dem employment minister
Jo Swinson lost her seat to the SNP in the wipeout on Thursday - but only lost by just over 2,000 votes, a much slimmer majority than many other former Scottish MPs.
Swinson was tipped as a future Lib Dem leader, and is married to Duncan Hames - another Lib Dem MP who lost his seat (Chippenham) in the election.
2010 result: Lib Dem 18,551 / Labour 16,367
2015 result: Lib Dem 19,926 / Labour 22,093
9. Ed Davey - Lib Dem secretary of state for energy
Davey has been in parliament since 1997 and was one of the five Lib Dem cabinet ministers for most of the coalition's 5 year term.
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He lost his Kingston & Surbiton seat to the Conservative party - the seat has always been competitive and seen as a Conservative target.
2010 result: Lib Dem 28,428 / Conservative 20,868
2015 result: Lib Dem 20,415 / Conservative 23,249
8. Simon Hughes - Lib Dem justice minister
After 32 years in parliament, Simon Hughes was ejected from his Southwark and Bermondsey seat. The constituency had been a target for the Labour party in pretty much every election, but Hughes' strong local standing had enabled him to hold on.
He wasn't able to surmount the massive national swing against the Lib Dems on Thursday.
2010 result: Lib Dem 21,590 / Labour 13,060
2015 result: Lib Dem 17,657 / Labour 22,146
7. David Laws - Lib Dem education minister
Laws lost his seat in Yeovil - a former Liberal Democrat stronghold. Before it was Laws' seat, it belonged to Paddy Ashdown, a former Liberal Democrat leader.
Laws was an investment banker before his time in politics began, was hit by an expenses scandal almost immediately after becoming chief secretary to the Treasury. However, he later came back into government as an education minister.
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2010 result: Lib Dem 31,843 / Conservative 18,807
2015 result: Lib Dem 18,865 / Conservative 24,158
6. Jim Murphy - Scottish Labour leader
Murphy has lead Scottish Labour for less than a year, taking over from Johann Lamont in October 2014. The party's strength has been sapped significantly by the seemingly unstoppable surge of the Scottish National Party, and Murphy saw a majority of more than 10,000 destroyed.
He's not alone - all but one Scottish Labour MP lost their jobs on Thursday, but Murphy's loss was particularly symbolic as the party's leader.
2010 result: Labour 25,987 / Conservative 15,567
2015 result: Labour 19,250 / SNP 23,013
5. Esther McVey - Conservative employment minister
In an election marked down as a massive Conservative victory, Esther McVey's loss in Wirral West was the only major scalp taken from the Conservative party.
McVey worked in her family's construction and demolition business and later as a TV presenter, before turning to politics. Like Swinson, she was tipped for more senior leadership roles in the future, as a better communicator than many other Tory ministers.
2010 result: Conservative 18,481 / Labour 18,898
2015 result: Conservative 16,726 / Labour 14,290
4. Danny Alexander - Lib Dem chief secretary to the Treasury
Alexander was one of the more predictable big beasts to lose their seat, again in Scotland and to the SNP. He took over from David Laws after his expenses scandal, and became a member of the decision-making "quad" that also included Nick Clegg, David Cameron and George Osborne.
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Before becoming a Lib Dem MP in 2005, Alexander was the director of communications for the Britain in Europe campaign, which pushed for the UK's membership of the euro.
2010 results: Lib Dem 25,580 / Labour 10,407
2015 results: Lib Dem 18,029 / SNP 28,838
3. Douglas Alexander - Labour shadow foreign secretary
Scottish MP Douglas Alexander was another of the Labour party's SNP casualties. Had Ed Miliband's party won, that would have been a big problem, since Alexander was shadow foreign secretary.
During previous Labour administrations, Alexander was minister for Europe and secretary of state for international development. He lost to the SNP's Mhairi Black, a 20-year old student who will become the youngest MP in the UK for hundreds of years.
2010 result: Labour 23,842 / SNP 7,228
2015 result: Labour 17,864 / SNP 23,548
2. Vince Cable - secretary of state for business
Vince Cable was perhaps the biggest Lib Dem heavyweight to lose his seat, since Danny Alexander' loss was widely expected. Cable was widely seen as a leader of the social liberal or centre-left faction of the party, and regarded as a perpetual contender for the party leader spot.
Cable chose not to run in the Lib Dem leadership election in 2007, but it always seemed possible that he could threaten Clegg's leadership of the party. He lost his Twickenham constituency, one of the cluster of Lib Dem seats in south-west London, to the Conservatives
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2010 result: Lib Dem 32,483 / Conservative 20,343
2015 result Lib Dem 23,563 / Conservative 25,580
1.) Ed Balls - shadow chancellor
Ed Balls lost his West Yorkshire seat by just a few hundred votes, but the loss is particularly symbolic of just how badly the Labour party did at this election. Had Miliband's party won, he would have become chancellor of the exchequer. Instead, he's been ejected from political life entirely.
Balls was a key member of Gordon Brown's team when he was chancellor - first as an adviser, and then as an MP. He's been a fixture of frontline politics for more than a decade, and is the biggest political beast to have lost his seat in the election.
