cheers steve, the system for holyrood elections is specifically designed to prevent one party having an overall majority, yet the snp have been good at winning to ensure a seemingly permanent dominance. however, as you say they do seem to be 'stuck' at around 50% for any independence vote- not good enough to be confident of a harmonious future no matter their strengths and the obvious nonsense of continuous tory misrule. labour scotland have done themselves no favours by getting into bed with scottish tories and reducing themselves to carping at anything the snp try to achieve. popular snp policies should be aspirations for the labour party - no trident, free this and that etc, a more nationalist outlook and an atmosphere of caring, engaged competence. there are many things that they (and the greens) should agree on - it should be a priority to make some alliance with scotland...to have a refendum with the promise of as much co-operation, friendship and mutual respect as is possible should scots make the choice to leave the uk. labour do often talk about federalism without really making it clear what this means - maybe nicola sturgeon and andy burnham could get together and work something out