PERHAPS the most striking aspect of the triumph is that the Conservatives must now wrestle with ambitious promises – on the NHS, housing, taxes and cuts – which they never expected to have to fulfil.

Meanwhile, there is the spectre of Scotland and how Mr Cameron’s need to build bridges with what is a virtual one-party state under the SNP will affect the region next door.

And, for good measure, the Tories are committed to ripping up the political map by forcing through the boundary changes that appeared to bite the dust in the last parliament.

One question that dogged Mr Cameron through the campaign was his plan for a further £12bn of welfare cuts – and his refusal to say what they will be.

Just before election day, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith revealed that work had not even started on finding this £12bn and the prime minister, under pressure, eventually ruled out changes to child benefit.

So where on earth will they find it? All we know is what has been floated, abolishing maternity pay, barring under-25s from various benefits – and toughening the ‘bedroom tax’, already so controversial in the North-East.

The Conservatives are also committed to ever-bigger cuts to unprotected departments including local government, which was hit hardest after 2010.

That will be very bad news for Northern council leaders who have protested they are unfairly targeted and would have hoped for some relief under Labour’s easing of austerity.

Will the Regional Growth Fund – which Nick Clegg claimed would never have been set up without the Liberal Democrats – survive massive cuts to the department for business?

On the spending side, the NHS has been promised an £8bn spending boost, but we have been given no clue how it will be funded. The same goes for frozen rail fares.

Meanwhile, the region’s housing associations face the shock of being forced to sell off their homes at huge discounts to their tenants, despite the experts’ warning that it will backfire by shrinking supply.

And what about devolution? Remarkably, the Conservative manifesto barely mentioned it – for all George’s Osborne’s talk of creating a ‘Northern Powerhouse’.

That suggests our town halls, if they want significant new powers, will have to swallow the Chancellor’s sour medicine of agreeing to a ‘metro mayor’, ruling over numerous local authority areas.

In their minds will be, not only further looming funding cuts, but the contrast with Scotland – where devolution is guaranteed and set to escalate.

Already, legislation is being drawn up to transfer responsibility for all income tax revenues and air passenger duty, while Scots continue to benefit hugely from the Barnett Formula.

Yesterday, in his victory speech, Mr Cameron vowed to whizz that package through “as fast as I can” – and to make Scotland the “strongest devolved Government in the world”.

In case he thinks of backsliding, the mighty SNP – as the third party - will now be entitled to ask two prime minister’s questions every week.

In contrast, MPs from the North-East, where most voters also rejected the Conservatives, of course, will have to bob up and down to catch the Speaker’s eye.

Oh, and there’s the small matter of that referendum on EU membership in 2017. It’s the issue that has so alarmed key employers such as Hitachi and Nissan – and the one that could cut short Mr Cameron’s honeymoon with his MPs.