First, the personalities: the inevitable who's up and who's down.
After giving in to temptation and calling a snap election purely aimed, whatever she says, at enhancing the Conservative majority in the face of promising polls that once again have been proved redundant, Theresa May has failed on her own 'strong and stable' terms. She has instead plunged the country into yet another round of further instability – a probable Tory leadership election and possible further general election – just when, as she said while looking shell-shocked in Maidenhead early this morning, the UK above all needs 'a period of stability'.
May has made it clear that she has 'no intention' of resigning when she addresses the media and the country in Downing Street this morning.
Yet power is swiftly ebbing away from her, there is talk of the DUP calling for her head as a price of a deal, and the ruthless Conservative party does not share Labour's traditional sentimentality when it comes to keeping failed leaders.
May's advisers may be urging her to stay, and it is true that she has a constitutional role to play in trying to form a government but, in time, we can expect a challenge. Conventional wisdom, so badly wrong on pretty much everything in recent years, has it that Boris Johnson is favourite to succeed May. But he has the air of a busted flush and remains relatively unpopular in the Tory parliamentary party. Instead, the little mentioned former Brexit secretary David Davis, ambitious and able, is a good outside bet.
And yet, this brings us to what is, when the dust settles, the key issue in this general election. Like other front-runners, Davis backed a hard Brexit that has been decisively rejected by the electorate. With days to go until what was scheduled to be the start of Brexit negotiations, the Tories have lost their overall majority, their mandate from the point of view of Brussels, and this has been an election in which remain voters have answered back, flocking to Labour despite Jeremy Corbyn's party trying to have a foot in both camps when it comes to leaving the EU.
Corbyn has said this morning that Brexit talks will go ahead, which surely, for better or worse, means that they will. The Labour leader holds many cards, though he will have to do more to recognise the large Remain vote he has received. Corbyn himself, of course, is strengthened, and momentum is with him. He will doubtless lead his party into the next election, even if – unlikely – that is in years rather than months.
He may even form a government if, as seems likely, the Tories implode further. This would not be a full coalition but a minority government based on an informal 'progressive alliance' with the Liberal Democrats and the SNP.
Which brings us to Scotland, a crucial factor in British politics: the nationalists have lost 21 seats and a second independence referendum now looks a long way off, the Union strengthened with gains from both Labour and the Tories north of the border.
The latter are significant in another way, which again relates to Brexit: Conservatives who have won in Scotland are – like some moderate Tories south of the border led by the re-elected Kenneth Clarke – going to be opposed to a 'hard' departure from the EU.
Apart from Corbyn, there are many losers in this general election: May, the SNP, the rightwing media and conventional wisdom.
In the short term, May may is the prime loser, having received a blow from which she cannot realistically recover.
But in the final analysis, the real victim of this general election is hard Brexit.
