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What happens to an MP who loses their seat? How quickly can he or she rebuild their lives?

With a number of well-known names felled brutally last week - such as Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls or Business Secretary Vince Cable - how hard is it to move from Westminster into the real world?

Former Labour MP for Watford Claire Ward said there was a sense of bereavement at losing her seat in 2010 after 13 years in Westminster.

Andy Reed was Labour MP for Loughborough from 1997 to 2010, and said it was particularly brutal losing his seat because politics is "a way of life, not a job".