And it couldn’t have been tighter. I’m still digesting this, but the only feasible coalition is SNP + Lib Dem + Green, and only by a bawhair.

Okay, here are my more in-depth thoughts. Firstly about the results themselves, then about the counting problems.

The bottom line is clearly the fact that the SNP have won the election. For the first time in fifty years, Labour are not the largest party in Scotland. In a sense, this isn’t a surprise. Even though Labour have always been electorally popular in Scotland, they have not always been in power. Now they have been for ten uninterrupted years. It was only natural that the main opposition would get in sometime, and they have.

The anti-Labour backlash wasn’t quite as large as I had hoped for, and the result really could not have been any closer. And exciting result in a way, and also quite an odd one. I think anyone expecting an independence referendum on the basis of this result had better not hold their breath.

Where I live, in Fife, Labour had a terrible night. Often they could expect to have Fife ringfenced, apart from that Lib Dem stronghold in North East Fife. But the SNP upsurge has seen a spectacular victory in Central Fife.

Meanwhile West Dunfermline has been taken by the Liberal Democrats, where they had that amazing Westminster by-election victory before. There were a lot of people who were disgruntled about the Lib Dem’s Westminster victory there, accusing them of hypocrisy over the Forth Road Bridge tolls. I think this cements once and for all how the actual voters feel about the Lib Dems in West Dunfermline.

In the other two Fife seats, Labour hang on, but with substantial swings towards the SNP. In these true monkey-in-a-red-rosette areas, hopefully the Labour candidates have been given a bit of a shock. The upshot is that out of the five Fife constituency seats, Labour now only have two of them where they would normally count on having four.

My over all impressions about the election, though, are that this was more about SNP gains than Labour losses. I’ve not studied the figures carefully, but during the night I got the impression that the Labour vote was actually holding solid — and indeed in some cases increasing — in a lot of areas.

The Lib Dems and the Conservatives were broadly unchanged in most areas. The SNP’s gains seem to mostly come from the collapse in the smaller parties. I noticed that many constituencies had only candidates from the four main parties, while last time round the SSP contested many areas. The absence of the SSP, combined with the general collapse of the left as a whole, seems to have contributed the most to the SNP’s upsurge.

What I cannot quite get my head around is the dire performance of all the minor parties. The problems with the SSP and Solidarity are understandable. They’ve spent the past year or so ripping chunks out of each other. Alister at Perspective has noted that a united left was credible, and greater than the sum of its parts. Last night was a disaster for both parties.

But what I really don’t understand is the collapse in support for small parties as a whole. It has been a distinguishing feature of the Scottish Parliament ever since the beginning — the variety of voices represented. Almost all of them have gone.

The Greens are down to just two seats, which is incredibly disappointing for them. I got the impression that they were hopeful of getting three MSPs in the Lothian region. So a massive shock for them, I think.

John Swinburne is also waving goodbye to Holyrood. I was impressed with his interview on BBC Scotland last night. He was very gracious in defeat, and he even said he thought the country was in good hands!

So, besides the Greens, there is only one person occupying the “other” box — Margo MacDonald. Socialism has been wiped out totally. No sign of any other different voices. Extraordinary.

Given all of this, I wonder if the SSP / Solidarity split has reflected badly on small parties as a whole. Perhaps the small parties have been hurt the most by this spoilt ballots problem. But over all, I’m scratching my head about that.

As I said above, I think a lot of the SNP’s upsurge is down to the poor performance of the small parties more than a collapse in Labour support. It is worth remembering that the SSP and Solidarity both support independence. It is very possible that, with a strong SNP campaign, a lot of these socialist supporters were tempted to vote SNP so that they could kick Labour out.

I think it was a good night for the Conservatives. They are down one seat overall, but they made a FPTP gain, which is good going for them. Remember, with the same constituency boundaries, the Tories were wiped out in 1997. Over the past decade, the Conservatives have been gaining FPTP seats back one-by-one.

And the Conservatives are also ahead of the Lib Dems over all. People always talk about the Conservatives being dead in Scotland. I’ve never bought that, and this result lays that myth to rest.

The Lib Dems are fourth, and it’s difficult to see much good news for them. Yes, a good result in West Dunfermline, where they were pushing hard for victory. But nothing too impressive elsewhere. And a huge swing away from Nicol Stephen in his own seat. A bit of a hairy one.

In a bit of amateur psephology on Twitter last night, I suggested that the SNP upsurge was happening across Scotland — apart from in the west. I was shocked when they didn’t win Cumbernauld and Kilsyth. It’s difficult to imagine how, with this great nationwide result for the SNP, how they lost that particular seat so spectacularly.

But then Nicola Sturgeon won Govan — at last. And then, as the list results came in, they won an astonishing four seats. The SNP performed quite well on the list in most regions. So it was a double-whammy, with the SNP doing well in both votes.

The exceptional region was, I think, Mid-Scotland and Fife, where Labour got three top-up seats. That is partly a reflection of the losses they made in Fife. In essence, the three constituency seats they lost were gained back in the top-up by default. Disappointments here for the Greens and the Lib Dems.

And the final over all result? Astonishingly close! And so close that it looks difficult for anyone to form a coalition. The only real feasible solution is SNP–Lib Dem–Green, but even that would have a majority of just one, which is not enough. Maybe Margo MacDonald could be brought on board, but it is still hairy. It could hinge partly on who becomes Presiding Officer.

Otherwise, Alex Salmond for First Minister? Almost certainly, as his party has the most seats. But it could effectively be a minority administration. Who knows, we might even have another election on our hands. What a thought!

Given all of the problems there were last night, there is probably not much appetite for another election. But a re-run would probably work okay. It wouldn’t be running at the same time as the local elections, and presumably (hopefully!) people are a bit more well-educated about how the voting system works.

The problems are causing a stink. I sympathise a bit with the idea that if you are too stupid to vote properly — and it’s not that complicated a system — then what right have you got to decide who runs the country?

On the other hand, there were a lot of things that could have been done to limit this. Most importantly, holding the local elections at the same time has undoubtedly been a huge mistake.

And just as bad a mistake was the decision to count those local election votes overnight. That could well have been what threw the e-counting systems into problems. If they had just conentrated on the Scottish Parliament overnight, it could have been okay.

There is no harm in waiting until the afternoon to start counting the local election results. Indeed, the way things turned out, that might have been quicker!

As for the e-counting systems, there were some rumblings about them in the run-up to the election, particularly from Fitaloon at MicroShaft. It looks a bit prescient now, but when I wrote the Scottish Roundup before polling ended, I wrote about it saying, “It would be a travesty if democracy failed this evening.” It did. So in that sense, these issues were entirely predictable, and predicted.

The e-counting systems were deemed necessary for the single transferable vote system and I can see why. As such, I don’t have a problem with the e-counting systems themselves. But what would have been the harm in just counting the Scottish Parliament votes by hand? That would have avoided this whole mess.

Electoral reform doom-mongers should be made aware that there is not a great deal to suggest that STV per se has caused the problems with spoilt papers. The number of spoilt papers in the local council elections has been much smaller than in the Scottish Parliament election.

That suggests that people understand STV well. But for whatever reason, they were thrown by the Scottish Parliament ballot paper. I admit to finding the huge list of parties rather overwhelming, though that should hardly lead to people filling in the form incorrectly.

One theory is that the ambiguous wording of the ballot paper, “You have TWO votes”, confused some people. Instead of putting one vote in each column, seemingly people have been putting two votes in one column. You still have to be thick as mince to manage to do that though. There are arrows pointing to each column, and it clearly says “mark ONE box only” above each column.

The biggest problem for me is that in Scotland we now have four different electoral systems for four different types of election:

• First Past the Post for Westminster
• Additional Member System (FPTP + D’Hondt-style top-up party lists) for Holyrood
• D’Hondt-style party list for European Parliament
• Single Transferable Vote for local councils

With so many different systems, it is no wonder some voters are getting confused, especially when two of them are being used on the same day. There are two answers — one radical, one not so radical.

The not so radical one is to simply hold local elections on a separate day. Tommy Sheridan made a number of good points talking on the television last night about it. There was undoubtedly some confusion, and the local elections were overshadowed and absorbed by the big national debate.

It would be sensible to simply hold different elections on different days. It might decrease turnout, but on the other hand if it means fewer spoilt ballots then more valid votes might be counted!

The more radical solution would be to stick to one voting system, namely single transferable vote. This is, on balance, the best system. The fact that there were actually relatively few spoilt ballots means that people have no bother understanding how to vote in an STV system.

The other systems are unfair for a variety of other reasons, but this post is long enough so I won’t go into them just now. No doubt long-time readers of this blog will be aware of what I think.

It would be a struggle to get all of the elections onto an STV system, particularly Westminster. But it would be nice, wouldn’t it?

As for who is to blame, obviously it is the Scotland Office because they are the ones who decided that the two elections should be held on the same day, and they are the ones who decided that the e-counting machines should be used. They have responsibility for the operation for the Scottish Parliament elections.

It is not a devolved matter, as the cowardly No. 10 statement claimed. Westminster has tried to pass the buck, but it is a Westminster department — Douglas Alexander’s Scotland Office — that is ultimately responsible.

Some people wonder what the Scotland Office is for these days. Obviously they are looking for stuff to do, so have been busybodying with this e-counting stuff. The e-counting systems might have been desirable for the local councils, but they did not need to be used for the Scottish Parliament elections.

The driving theory test went well. I only got 35 out of 35 for the multiple choice bit. For the hazard perception bit I got 63 out of 75. My mode score was 5 per hazard (the maximum is 5)! Crazy. Fair to say I nailed it then.

Not bad considering I didn’t get much sleep last night. It’s a bit of a pre-exam tradition for me. I spend so much time not getting out of bed until midday at the earliest that I can never get enough sleep if I have to actually get up early (9am in this case). Funnily enough, I felt absolutely fine. I often perform well if I haven’t had a lot of sleep, although I know from experience that it is unwise to deprive yourself of sleep.

The hazard perception clips can be pretty ridiculous. If you’ve never had experience of these, you are basically shown a short video clip of a car journey, and at some point something absolutely ridiculous — a “developing hazard” — will happen. Then you have to click to show that you’ve seen this hazard develop.

A lot of the clips are ridiculously staged. In one of the clips you see somebody getting boxes out of a white van. This happens for ages and ages, for the entire length of the road. And what happens as soon as you reach the van? The bloke suddenly decides to carry the boxes that he has been holding for ages; he steps out right in front of you to cross the road. Give that man an Oscar.

How this is supposed to test your actual perception of hazards I don’t know. For a start, with these hazard perception clips you know that a hazard is going to occur, whereas in real life you don’t. Your finger hovers over the mouse button when your foot could never hover above the brake like that. All of the instructors seem to hate it aswell — they call it an arcade game. Real hazard perception, they say, happens when you’re actually driving.

Here is a tip for anybody who happens to be sitting their theory test in Dunfermline. I might as well use my Google power for something other than 53X 74p3. The directions you are given in the letter are fairly vague. Most misleadingly they tell you that it’s in Dunfermline, which is technically true. I had been warned against going by train by more than one person — it’s too far away from the train station, and you’ll just get lost.

But which train station? Because it is in Dunfermline, most people only consider going from Dunfermline Town train station. But one person advised me that the centre is actually very close to Rosyth train station! It sounds wrong but it’s true. Rosyth train station isn’t actually in Rosyth, it’s kind of wedged in between Rosyth and Dunfermline. So the driving theory place is little more than a 10 minute walk away. It’s not difficult to find your way.

Now I’ve just got to do it all on the road instead of a computer screen. That could prove a challenge…

Minor spoiler alert

I’m not much of a moviegoer. The last time I went to the cinema was to see Signs (it wasn’t my choice), starring that popular fellow Mel Gibson. In case you have forgotten this forgettable movie, it featured aliens that were scared by water. The entire length of the film was spent avoiding the question: If these aliens are so scared of water, why the hell did they land on Earth, a planet which is >70% water? That was four years ago.

The time before that was to see Austin Powers 2. There was a powercut in the middle of the film. That was in Kirkcaldy’s own scummy ABC cinema, when Kirkcaldy still had a cinema (we now have to make a bloody 40 minute round trek to Dunfermline for the nearest cinema). That was seven years ago. I can’t even remember the time before that. I was probably an actual child.

I don’t even watch films on the television all that much. It just doesn’t really float my boat. But there was no way I was going to miss Snakes on a Plane.

The problem was that it was difficult to know exactly how to approach the film. We know that the film was supposed to be a thriller / horror / disaster film. But all of the hype on the internet gave the film such an inherently comic twist.

When you hear of them shooting new scenes to include comedy lines like “I have had it with these motherfuckin’ snakes on the motherfuckin’ plane” and literally sex up the film because of all the internet hype, you half expect a comedy film, or at least a film that isn’t taking itself too seriously. This suspicion increases when you see that one of the actors is Keenan from Keenan & Kel.

Indeed, my friend was guffawing all the way through the film, mostly in bits that weren’t funny. He was, though, the only person in the entire cinema laughing, bar a few titters here and there. There was one part that I found quite funny though, when all of the lights in the plane go out and you hear somebody in the distance shout: “SNAKE!”

But most of the film is delivered with a straight face. A lot of it is actually pretty gory, and not in a slapstick blood-n-guts type way à la Troma. This would be just like any other horror / disaster movie were it not for all of the internet hype and the refreshingly unpretentious film title. They almost called this film ‘Pacific Air Flight 121′. That pretty much sums up why I don’t like watching films much.

Samuel L. Jackson has it spot on about the title, which he says is the only reason he took the job:

It’s not Gone with the Wind. It’s not On the Waterfront. It’s Snakes on a Plane!

Of course, were it not for that title — and the fact that Samuel L. Jackson is starring in the film with that title — there would have been no internet buzz. In one sense, I think the way New Line handled the buzz was pretty cool, when they decided to add lines that internet users came up with (mind you, these lines stuck out like a sore thumb. “That’s all we need — snakes on crack” was particularly bad).

In another sense I think — in typical MSM ivory tower style — they have misread the buzz. For instance, I don’t understand why it meant that they had to crowbar new sex and drug scenes in a deliberate attempt to get an R rating. And I’ve noticed that New Line have been disappointed by box office takings so far:

“I think people were more excited about the marketing than the actual movie,” said [Paul] Dergarabedian of Exhibitor Relations. “New Line did not set out to create this Internet buzz. That’s actually a marketer’s dream, but when marketing translates into awareness but does not inspire people to get out from behind their computers and into the theater, that’s a problem.”

Dergarabedian might think that the internet hype was a marketer’s dream — but it must be a filmmaker’s nightmare. In reality, anybody who saw the film because of the internet buzz saw the film because of the internet buzz, and not because they wanted to see the film. As soon as Samuel L. Jackson said, “I’ve had it with these motherfuckin’ snakes on a motherfuckin’ plane,” the film was essentially over.

The Snakes on a Plane internet buzz says much more about the internet than it says about Snakes on a Plane. The film itself is completely meaningless compared to the many virals and memes that have been out there on the internet. The event was not the film’s opening on Friday; the event has been happening on the internet for months.

That said, I was actually quite impressed with Snakes on a Plane as a film, so I would recommend this even if you’re reluctant about it.

• Wikipedia: Snakes on a Plane
• IMDb: Snakes on a Plane
• Samuel L. Jackson promoting SoaP on The Daily Show:
  

Apparently, Dunfermline is not a traditional Labour seat! Aahahahahahahahahahhahahah!

I have no useful opinions on any of the current hot talking points.

• Ariel Sharon’s illness
• Charles Kennedy / Liberal Democrats
• George Galloway on Celebrity Big Brother
• The death of Rachel Squire MP

…so here are some completely useless opinions instead.

Ariel Sharon’s illness — Nothing interesting to say, apart from the fact that I once again found BBC News 24’s headline a bit weird. They often seem to have trouble describing a story in just two or three words. “SHARON VERY ILL”. It sounds more like a headline on Newsround. It was later changed to “SHARON GRAVELY ILL”, and then “SHARON STROKE”.

Charles Kennedy / Liberal Democrats — I read that every leadership contender needs to get seven signatures before they can be nominated. So if all of the other contenders wuss out of playing Heseltine, and Charles Kennedy is unable to get seven signatures, we presumably have the possibility of there being a leadership contest with no nominees.

George Galloway on Celebrity Big Brother — Nothing apart from the obvious: “WTF — what an ego-man”. But it could be risky for him. If he puts his foot in it in the BB house, that’s it.

Rachel Squire / Dunfermline and West Fife By-election Labour shoo-in — Monkeys with red rosettes in the Dunfermline area are polishing up their CVs.