Voters today woke up to the shock news that Britain had elected a hung parliament after Theresa May and her Conservatives failed to win a Commons majority.
In what has been called a catastrophic General Election gamble for the Prime Minister, Mrs May saw her pre-election majority wiped out with Labour making gains in 29 seats.
She is now attempting to stay in power and was due to visit Buckingham Palace on Friday afternoon in a bid to form a government.
As the 10pm exit poll was announced and the first results began to come in, journalists scrambled together Friday’s newspaper front pages.
“Theresa Dismay” read the Sun’s splash – from a newspaper which had consistently backed Mrs May and urged readers not to chuck Britain “in the Cor-bin”.
The Daily Mail said the Prime Minister was “on ropes as her big gamble backfires” and also cited fears of “Brexit chaos”.
Both the Times and the Independent went with the PM’s election gamble failing to pay off, while the Daily Telegraph’s splash read: “Britain votes for chaos”.
The Guardian – which came out in support of Labour ahead of Thursday’s vote – led with the headline: “Corbyn stuns the Tories” ahead of a picture of the grinning party leader.
The Daily Mirror and the Metro took a similar tack with a photo of jubilant Mr Corbyn posing with a thumbs up and headlines including “Cor blimey” and “Stormin’ Corbyn”.
Downing Street announced on Friday that the PM would see the Queen at 12.30pm to say she was ready to form a government.
Despite her election slogan promising a “strong and stable” government rather than the “coalition of chaos” that Labour was offering, it looks likely that the PM will either form a minority government or sign a deal with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party.
