New Brooms

Leaving aside the current tango between the SNP and Lib Dems over whether a Holyrood coalition will be possible, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the outcome of the local government elections:

SNP – 363 councillors (29.7% of the total)
Labour – 348 councillors (28.48%)
Lib Dems – 166 councillors (13.6%)
Conservatives – 143 councillors (11.7%)
Others – 194 councillors. (15.9%)

Much of Labour's power base in Scotland came from the local authorities, and the subtle and occasionally not-so-subtle control which this allowed them to exert. Thanks to PR, Labour has now lost 161 (almost a third) of their councillors, sweeping away their one party client states in all but the most unreconstructed parts of West Central Scotland. Even there, they will now face scrutiny from a new cadre of SNP, Conservative and Lib Dem representatives, who will doubtless be keen to subject their local administrations to unprecedented levels of accountability.

Scottish politics was changed utterly and forever last Thursday - I'm just not sure how many of the politicians yet realise how different things are going to be.