BROUGHTON-IN-FURNESS, ENGLAND — When it finally happened, the new order arrived speedily: no two-month transition, as in Washington; no conclave of cardinals, as in Rome.

Minutes after Gordon Brown visited Queen Elizabeth II on Tuesday to draw a ceremonial line under 13 years of Labour power, he was followed through the portals of Buckingham Palace by David Cameron, his triumphant Conservative successor seeking formal royal assent to an unfamiliar coalition — Britain’s first in 65 years — with the Liberal Democrats.

It happened, for the victors, with a fanfare of superlatives and, for the defeated, with the first rumbles of rancor as Labourites absorbed the unpalatable reality of rejection by the nation.

Looking on, it was almost possible to imagine the coffee still warm on the stove, the TV relaying tidings from outside 10 Downing Street to empty rooms within when the newcomer arrived to take up residence. Power changed hands with abrupt and unsentimental haste: in British politics, there may be no government only for the briefest of moments.