Party Leaders Side By Side To Mark VE Day

A service has been held at the Cenotaph in Whitehall starting formal commemorations of the victory over Nazi Germany 70 years ago.

More than 100 veterans watched as the Duke of York, representing the Queen, joined politicians and military leaders to lay wreaths.

David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg appeared together - just hours after the results of a bitter General Election were announced. Also present was SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, whose party now dominates Scotland.

Mr Clegg and Mr Miliband were performing their last major public roles as party leaders after resigning.

The ceremony started at 3pm - the time Prime Minister Winston Churchill informed the nation of the German surrender.

Artillery guns rang out at the Tower of London and Wellington Barracks Parade Square, signalling the start of the two-minute silence.

Mr Churchill's great-grandson Randolph Churchill read an excerpt from his famous 1945 speech.

The service, which included readings, hymns and a blessing, was led by the Bishop to the Armed Forces the Right Reverend Nigel Stock, with music from the Choir of St Martin-in-the-Fields.

On Friday evening, a chain of up to 250 beacons were lit across the UK as "flames of peace".

The lights stretched from the Tower of London to Blackpool Tower and the community of Unst, the most northerly populated island in the British Isles, as well as to Britain's Overseas Territories.

The Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, lit the first beacon at the top of the Long Walk at Windsor Castle - 70 years after she sneaked out of Buckingham Palace to dance in the streets with the crowds celebrating the war's end.

It is among three days of events as Britons commemorate the announcement that Germany had offered unconditional surrender to the Allies - bringing an end to the Second World War in Europe.

People are being encouraged to get involved by dressing up in 1940s-style clothing, holding street parties and enjoying a celebratory "kiss for VE Day".

On each night over the weekend, the Houses of Parliament, St Paul's Cathedral and Trafalgar Square will be lit with V-shaped lights, mirroring the floodlights that bathed the buildings following victory 70 years ago.

The anniversary of the end of the war in Europe was also marked in other countries, including in France where President Francois Hollande laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel attended a memorial service while President Barack Obama was also due to attend events in Washington DC, where there was to be a fly past by historical aircraft from the Second World War.