Alex Salmond – triumphal return to Edinburgh

The First Minister, Alex Salmond, returned to Edinburgh tonight aboard the helicopter he has become accustomed to using in recent days, during what has turned out to be the most successful campaign in the history of the SNP.

The party will return to Holyrood with a voting majority when MSPs are sworn in next week for the first time in the history of the Scottish Parliament.

There have been some upsets, not the least of which was the Conservative Leader, Annabel Goldie who lost the constituency vote, but has been returned to office on the regional list vote. She claimed that the only reason that the SNP won was that the Tory and LibDem votes had defected.

However tonight was all about the SNP and their historic victory. Whether or not that results in a referendum on Scotland’s independence we shall have to wait and see, but in any event we are led to believe that such a referendum would only be persuasive and not legally binding.

We were there with the press pack, and Deputy Minister, Nicola Sturgeon,  to greet him, all a bit tired by now,  but still desperate to get the best shots at Prestonfield House.

A rather surprising guest was former MP, Michael Portillo, who was there with a film crew making a documentary.

We hope that you like our photographs of Saltire 1 arriving at Prestonfield House and the First Minister delivering his speech to waiting journalists. He started by telling us how much he especially liked Kirkcaldy today :-

http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F14804266&show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=6606a1 Alex Salmond by PMStephen