Rollercoaster

Phew!!

What a last couple of weeks it has been in Scottish Politics.

Firstly we probably had the biggest rollercoaster ride in the world. i.e. The Scottish Elections. Lack of postal ballots, breaking down machines, suspended counts, sellotape and a man swinging a golf club. It was certainly memorable.

Not to mention a pretty pathetic turnout, two elections, using three different ways to allocate seats and of the ones that did turn up to vote, a significant number couldn't make head nor tail of what they were expected to do.

Once some results did finally start to come in, there was no way to predict a winner until the very last seat was read out. Just as a result came in that you thought, "right that's it, it is bound to go their way now," along would come another result which would fly in the face of the previous one.

At the end of it all, we had a change of government, which I think the majority of Scotland wanted to see. Although, was it going to be a coalition or minority government? The Lib Dems intransigence made sure that there was going to be no coalition despite the Greens appealing to their better nature.

Salmond has already got down to business and has elected his front bench, slashing the number of departments that the previous administration had left. This is supposed to be a slicker government to work towards making Scotland "Healthier, Wealthier, Safer and Better Educated." Certainly Salmond is going about his business with the confidence expected of a national leader, which I think was slightly lacking form the previous incumbent.

At the UEFA Cup Final which was held in Glasgow on Wednesday, Salmond was rubbing shoulders with UEFA president Michael Platini. Barely 24 hours later, Salmond was staking Scotland's bid to host the European Championships in 2016.

He has also highlighted the fact that Scottish companies have to pay substantially more money to get their electricity onto the national grid than their London counterparts.

Although these two things don't amount to very much in themselves, I think it points to the direction Salmond is taking Scotland. Standing up for its interests and not just lying down and accepting normal practice.

More of the same Alex.