Well, it seems that the Lib Dems have (for once in their lives) stuck to their manifesto commitments and refused to go into coalition with the SNP. I don’t see why they wouldn’t accept the compromise on offer though - coalition government, but without any requirement to support an independence referendum. In other words, they could go into government, and have the direct ability to put their policies into practice, without breaking their promise not to support an independence referendum.
Whatever the reasons and counter-reasons, the most likely end result is that the SNP (possibly in an insignificant coalition with the 2-MSP Greens) will form a minority government in the Scottish Parliament. The Labourslave newspapers (chief among them the Daily Record and the Scotsman ((Both had a habit of printing anti-SNP Blairist propaganda as fact during the election campaign))) are predicting all sorts of doom and gloom - that the SNP can’t possibly expect to get its policies into law, and that it will result in an electoral hammering for them next time as voters see a lack of result from their SNP vote ((I’m not sure whether this is actual analysis or wishful thinking, giving the political persuasion of the newspapers we’re talking about here)).
Unfortunately, people (many of the same people, in fact) were saying the same thing about coalition government in 1999, and that turned out fine. There is no reason why, for example, local income tax (one of the SNP’s main commitments in the ‘other than independence’ section of the manifesto) will not end up a reality. The Lib Dems might not be in coalition with the SNP, but Nicol Stephen has said that they will promote their own, positive policies - local income tax is one of these. The same can be said of policies in other areas -the SNP voted in favour of a significant number of Labour policies they agreed with during the last Parliament, and I don’t see any reason why the reverse will not be true this time.
The governance of Scotland looks likely to be different from anything we have seen before, and not just in terms of party makeup. That doesn’t necessarily mean it is going to be worse than what went before.