SNP, Labour and Tories all made to suffer in UK elections

There was something for everyone in Thursday's elections in England, Scotland and Wales but the results carried a sting in the tail for each of the parties too.

Nicola Sturgeon's Scottish National Party (SNP) is set to win a third term in government at Holyrood, although the party fell short of an overall majority. The big winners in Scotland were Ruth Davison's Conservatives, who looked set to double their seats, pushing Labour into third place after the party's worst result in Scotland since 1910.

It was a mixed night for Labour elsewhere, as it suffered fewer losses than predicted in English councils and looked set to retain power in Wales on a slightly reduced vote. It retained two Westminster seats in by-elections. Labour shows no sign of recovering from its general election defeat last year but its performance was not sufficiently poor to trigger a coup against Jeremy Corbyn. And the party's most glittering prize is still to come, as it expects to learn later on Friday that Sadiq Khan has won the contest for London mayor over Conservative Zac Goldsmith.

It was a mixed result for the Conservatives too, with a smaller share of the vote than in the general election and the likely loss in London, but an increase in English councillors and the triumph in Scotland. For a party currently tearing itself apart over the EU referendum, the outcome offers welcome evidence of resilience.

The United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) made gains in English councils and looked set to win its first seats in the Welsh national assembly but it had a poor night in Scotland and looks set to make little impact in London.

One Liberal Democrat MP defined success for the party last night as “showing that the corpse is still twitching” and it achieved that. The party picked up a few seats in English councils but it was pushed into fourth place in Scotland by the Greens.

Although much of the focus of the elections has been on their role as the first big test at the polls for Mr Corbyn’s leadership, the result in Scotland may be of more enduring significance. The resurgent Conservatives have achieved a realignment of Scottish politics, threatening the once-dominant Labour with irrelevance and emerging as a serious challenge to the SNP’s hegemony.

In Ruth Davison, Scottish Conservatives have found a forward-looking, effective leader and the Conservatives at Westminster may have seen a future one.