I don't know about anyone else, but I punched the air when Stephen Gethins won the final Scottish seat by just two votes. In spite of the recounts and the relentless optimism of SNP supporters on social media, I had almost given up on that one, because the Liberal Democrats were reported to be anything between one and three votes ahead, and recounts so rarely reverse the original result even when it's that tight. Psychologically it was an important win - it meant the SNP outperformed the original exit poll prediction (albeit only just), and probably outperformed Nicola Sturgeon's own expectations even at quite an advanced stage of the night, when she told David Dimbleby she expected to finish with "a little over 30" seats.
It also means the SNP have taken roughly 60% of the seats in Scotland. For the avoidance of doubt, a result like that can quite properly be called a landslide victory. Here's how it compares with various historical landslides at UK-wide level...
2017 (SNP landslide, Scotland only) :
SNP 59.3%
All other parties 40.7%
1945 (Attlee landslide) :
Labour 61.4%
All other parties 38.6%
1959 (Macmillan landslide) :
Conservatives 57.9%
All other parties 42.1%
1966 (Wilson landslide) :
Labour 57.8%
All other parties 42.2%
1983 (Thatcher landslide) :
Conservatives 61.1%
All other parties 38.9%
1987 (Thatcher landslide) :
Conservatives 57.8%
All other parties 42.2%
1997 (Blair landslide) :
Labour 63.4%
All other parties 36.6%
2001 (Blair landslide) :
Labour 62.5%
All other parties 37.5%
Even the SNP's popular vote share of 37% compares favourably with some previous UK majority governments - it's identical to the mandate received by the Tories in 2015, and on which they've been governing us over the last two years. It's also better than the 35% mandate on which Labour governed for a full five-year term between 2005 and 2010.
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I'm beginning to have my doubts about whether there's going to be another election any time soon. The polling companies will doubtless hold yet another inquiry, and will presumably this time move methodology in a much more Labour-friendly direction, with less aggressive turnout weighting from the likes of ICM and ComRes. That makes it significantly less likely that a Tory Prime Minister will be able to convince herself or himself that a snap election is winnable on the basis of the polling evidence. We could be in for a John Major-style scenario where a weak Tory government holds on for grim death over a period of years, while being ground down by defeats in by-elections and being constantly held to ransom by extremist backbenchers and Northern Ireland unionists. In fact, it'll be even worse this time, because at least John Major had a small majority to play with.
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As some of you may have seen, I took part in Independence Live's election show last night. The whole thing (six hours' worth!) is available to watch HERE - I'm on about 58 minutes in.
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