Yesterday was a great day for Holyrood and Scottish democracy

Yesterday was a great day for Scottish democracy, and has left Holyrood to function as it was set up to do, with no single party in overall control. Out of 129 seats, the SNP has 63, the Tories 31, Labour 24, the Greens 6 and the Liberal-Democrats 5. What this means is that the SNP has enough seats to pass day to day legislation, but for anything controversial it will need the support of one other party at least. That, ladies and gentlemen, suits me right down to the ground.

The failure yesterday was in the SNP's  policy of asking for its supporters to give it both votes, and then expecting that to give the party all that many list seats. The SNP grabbed 59 constituencies out of a total of 73, so its vote share on the list was marked down dramatically, which is why they managed to get just four list seats.

A lot of screaming will now begin, but for the rest of us, normal service has been resumed. The SNP can govern the country with our blessing, but they cannot do anything too ambitious without the support of other parties.

That's democracy, folks, and it worked fine yesterday.