I goes without saying that the result of yesterday's election has been astonishing. The SNP have secured the first out-right majority in the parliament's history. A few days ago, we were whispering about an independence referendum being secured by a SNP-Green-Margo alliance. Now, the Nationalists can do it alone. How this will play out over the next five years we can only guess at this stage, but here are a few things that I think will be key to the SNP's fortunes during the lifetime of this parliament.
In the short-term, it will be interesting to see how Labour regroup from their embarrassment last night. Grey may have clung on, but his leadership is over. Labour struggled for leadership material as things stood. Now with so many heavy-weights joining the dole queue, whoever replace's Grey will have their work cut out in reshaping their party. Key to that is learning to work within the new political landscape in Scotland - following the end of Labour rule in Westminster - that they so utterly failed to grasp in this election. It's been a pretty poor showing for Ed Milliband too, regardless of what the result of the AV referendum is. Any serious grief likely to beset the SNP then will have to be of their own making, at least for the next 6 months.
Self-inflicted damage is not unlikely however. SNP support has hit an unprecedented high this week, but it'll take a miracle to sustain. Their manifesto is optimistic at the very least, and it will be more about managing expectations than meeting them as they go forward as a majority government. We've seen that there's political capital in blaming Westminster for cuts but the public will soon tire of that, as might be evidenced by the public disdain for the "it was all Labour's fault" line of the London coalition. And Salmond will have to take care not to undermine his independence message when running an anti-cuts narrative that must surely implicate Scotland's financial institutions as central characters.
What will be very interesting is what the Lib Dem meltdown will mean for the coalition's legitimacy in Scotland. The handful of Scottish Lib Dem MPs are the closest thing that the UK government has to a democratic mandate in Scotland besides David Mundell. Watching as the Highlands, Fife and Lothian turned yellow, and looking at where the SNP gains came from elsewhere, one has to conclude that Scotland has rejected the Liberal Democrats resoundingly. This will only add salience to the ghost of Thatcherism, when Scotland was ruled by the English in the minds of many nationalists and unionists alike. That can only help the SNP in their independence campaign.
The Labour party were guilty of some gross misjudgement when they wheeled out the likes of Ed Balls to tell Scots that independence would be bad for them. Now it sounds as though Cameron's going to have a good go at it too. I'm notionally in favour of the union, but even I start gritting my teeth and reaching for the Claymore when I hear patronising messages like this. Scottish independence would be a monumental undertaking, with no doubt countless ups and downs. But there is no doubt that we could do it if we wanted to. Being told by English politicians that we can't will only strengthen that resolve. So my advice to those in Westminster who wish to retain the union is to either keep quite, or focus on why the union needs Scotland and not the other way around - leave that latter part to your Scottish colleagues.
Like it or not, we've entered a new era of politics in Scotland. Support for independence is still a long way off, but the SNP have got a couple of years to play with and a lot that could well play into their hands. The SNP have come out of a fairly lacklustre term looking stronger than ever. This is the party that flopped on local income tax, backtracked on alcohol controls, released Al Megrahi and forgot to apply for the very tax varying powers that could give Scotland an interim step towards cutting the apron strings. Yet they've secured an historic second term with massive gains. If I'll say one thing for Salmond it's that he's brimming with confidence. That confidence has overflowed into the Scottish electorate, in spite of the dire economic straits ahead. The other parties need to wake up to this new reality, or independence is closer than they might think.
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