The Scottish and Welsh public have cast their votes in the devolved parliamentary elections.

Analysis: Scotland and Wales election results

Analysis: Scotland and Wales election results

By Hannah Brenton

For a campaign that started with Alex Salmond’s Scottish National Party (SNP) on the backfoot, Scottish voters have overwhelmingly supported his party and his leadership.

A dramatic landslide will see the SNP not only regain control of Holyrood but acquire the first ever majority in the Scottish parliament – something many commentators believed was nigh impossible under Scotland’s quasi-proportional representation system. The party has even surpassed the magic majority-making number of 65 seats, reached a grand total of 69.

Mr Salmond will now begin an historic second term as first minister and has himself expressed shock at the scale of the victory. In his victory speech last night, the SNP leader promised to bring forward a referendum on Scottish independence during the course of the next parliament – a prospect that will worry Westminster.

The SNP’s success hinged upon a collapse in both the Labour and Liberal Democrat votes. The Lib Dems took a serious battering, losing 12 seats and leaving them without a presence on mainland Scotland. They now retain only the North Sea outposts of the Shetland and Orkney Islands. Their voters appear to have flocked to the SNP.

But Labour too lost votes and seats, in a campaign where the party expected to capitalise on mistrust of the Westminster coalition. Labour leader Iain Gray has already resigned in response to the party’s dire performance.

The Scottish outcome is incredibly embarrassing for Labour leader Ed Miliband, who said in Scotland recently: “The fight back starts here”. That line has since been repeated with glee by senior Tories and is likely to be a thorn in his side for the next few weeks. It also overshadowed gains Labour has made in the English local elections.

Meanwhile, in Wales the parties face a very different situation. There, Labour received the voters’ favour, over the nationalist party Plaid Cymru.

Labour and Plaid have shared power in the Welsh Assembly for the past four years. Voters have punished the nationalists for the failures of that parliament, including the high unemployment rate, leaving the party with four less seats in the Senedd.

Labour benefited from the dual position of incumbency and a fresh alternative to the Wesminster coalition. Yet the party missed out on an overall majority by one seat. They have claimed the 30 seats necessary for a working majority, but Welsh Labour leader Carwyn Jones will decide over the coming days whether to seek coalition partners once more.

The Lib Dem collapse in Wales reached the point where they finished behind the British National party (BNP) in a number of constituencies, but their five seats could leave them as prospective coalition partners for Labour. As in the local elections, the Tory vote has held up well, but leader Nick Bourne failed to hold onto his seat.

This raises the interesting spectacle of a Lib-Lab coalition in Cardiff. Plaid is certain to be reluctant to enter a coalition once more after their electoral beating this time round, while a Labour pact with the Tories is highly unlikely. But Mr Jones may well decide to go it alone.