Lesley Riddoch

The Scottish election is over but the battle for the winning narrative has only just begun. Clearly, in the eyes of most democrats, the SNP with 64 seats to the Conservatives’ 31 have won big time. But since the party was one tantalising seat short of clinching an overall majority (so much harder to achieve in proportional Holyrood than winner-takes-all, first-past-the-post Westminster), that is now being cast as a fail. All day Saturday, BBC TV carried a rolling caption on its election special declaring that the SNP were ‘short of a majority’. It was the same story on Sky News whose Saturday night headlines proclaimed: ‘Nicola Sturgeon's hopes of winning a majority uncertain; Labour maintain control of Senedd.’ Now, fair play.

The Scottish election may be a done deal but the move towards indyref2 is the next big thing. And on that rocky road Scots independence supporters may have some unusual allies: English public opinion and much of the London-based press. Curiously enough, these forces may be ready to apply powerful pressure on a beleaguered Boris Johnson to do the right thing by Scots if a majority of independence-supporting MSPs are elected on May 6 as expected. Indeed, if Nicola Sturgeon takes her time demanding the Section 30 powers that let her hold a lawful referendum, mad-for-it London hacks may hold Nicola's feet to the fire more effectively than a SNP/Green/Alba supermajority at Holyrood.

Adam Tomkins’ suggestion that the UK should morph from a consent-based union of equals into a constitutional forced marriage contains all the classic elements of modern Unionist thought. Guaranteed to infuriate Yessers by suggesting a treaty between two independent states can be retrospectively replaced by a Hotel California-style unquittable union — check. Guaranteed to cement the Tories’ reputation as the slightly-crazed, hardball members of the Better Together team for current electoral purposes — check. Guaranteed to fall apart as a proposition after five minutes of serious examination — check.