Salmond's Leap Year ; with Their Election Victory in May, the Snp Reshaped the Political Landscape, Dealt a Hammer Blow to Labour and Finally Made Holyrood a Place to Be Taken Seriously. But, with the Honeymoon Over, Can the Nationalists Ever Deliver On Their Big Idea?

Summary

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IN December 2004, I took Alex Salmond out to dinner. The guinea fowl was excellent and Mr Salmond gave every appearance of sympathy when I enmired the sleeve of my best suit in the dessert.

Later, over coffee, he said: 'If I nearly beat Donald Dewar, I can certainly beat Jack McConnell. We will win this election: we will win in 2007.' And I said 'Aye, right,' or words to that effect. We ken noo. And, at the end of a truly astonishing year in Scottish politics, let us just remind ourselves of the new order since that election in May. Admittedly, after frantic campaigning and opinion poll upon poll showing a solid Nationalist lead, amidst the chaos of election night and that long, long Friday of counts and recounts, it was eventually a darned close-run thing.

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Extract

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Salmond's Leap Year ; with Their Election Victory in May, the Snp Reshaped the Political Landscape, Dealt a Hammer Blow to Labour and Finally Made Holyrood a Place to Be Taken Seriously. But, with the Honeymoon Over, Can the Nationalists Ever Deliver On Their Big Idea?

The SNP barely pipped Labour in the popular vote and took 47 Holyrood seats to Labour's 46. Although there were spectacular constituency gains, including Stirling, Livingston, Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, the Nationalists missed a few sitters, such as Cumbernauld and Kilsyth.

In the first stunned hours that evening, one could almost excuse Jack McConnell for hailing such a close call as a 'magnificent result for Labour', or the fatuous Cathy Jamieson for shrugging before Saturday cameras and allowing merely that th...

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