(Alliance News) - Former Labour MP Peter Mandelson said he was "gobsmacked" by an exit poll which predicted a Labour landslide.
He told the BBC: "I think that an electoral meteor has now struck planet Earth," and called it an "extraordinary achievement for Keir Starmer and his team".
"Nobody in 2019, nobody would have imagined this was possible and they and the team and all the people who've won this campaign deserve absolutely every piece of credit that's coming their way."
Mandelson, now a member of the House of Lords, said the result was not surprising "given everything the country's gone through over the last 10 years".
"I think it would have required Superman as leader of the Conservative Party to lead them back to some sort of victory and Sunak is not Superman," he added.
Conservative MP, Steve Baker, who looks set to lose his seat said it was a matter for Rishi Sunak whether he stays on as Tory leader during a likely period of "recriminations".
Baker told the BBC: "There will be undoubtedly recrimination, there will be shock, there will be anger, denial."
Former Tory leader Lord Hague told Times Radio it was a "pretty catastrophic result" for the Conservatives.
By Jeremy Cutler, Alliance News reporter
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