Salmond flies in as SNP win landslide victory in Scottish Elections

First Minister Alex Salmond and his Scottish National Party have achieved the “unachievable” by winning an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament elections.

Pundits considered an overall majority in the Parliament to be virtually unachievable due to the mixed voting system, which combines a vote for constituency MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament), with a regional party list system.

The SNP swept all before them with several ex-ministers from opposition parties losing their seats, in a night of drama and surprise which surpassed even the SNP’s own predictions. Support for Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and the Greens, crumbled away across the whole country.

Alex Salmond has led a minority government for the last four years, and had to seek compromise and consensus with other parties for his policy programme. Now he will be in a commanding position to push through SNP manifesto promises.

And he has pledged to hold a referendum on Scottish Independence – a raison d’etre and core belief of the Party since its inception.

Meanwhile Labour Leader Iain Gray has announced he will stand down as leader in the autumn. He has been criticised for running a lacklustre campaign, with the Labour Party having 32 fewer seats than the SNP, compared to just one seat of a difference in 2007.

The final tally of seats is SNP 69, Labour 37, Conservatives 15, Liberal Democrats 5, Green Party 2, Independent 1.