John Swinney wins vote to be re-appointed first minister

John Swinney is to be re-appointed as first minister of Scotland.

The SNP leader won the nomination in a vote of the Scottish Parliament.

The leaders of Holyrood's five other parties also stood for the role, but the SNP's comfortable election victory made Swinney's nomination a virtual certainty.

His appointment will be rubber-stamped by the King before a signing-in ceremony at the Court of Session on Wednesday.

Swinney, who has served as first minister since taking over from Humza Yousaf two years ago, will appoint a cabinet on Wednesday.

He told MSPs he would provide "reliable, trusted leadership in turbulent times".

Swinney said he would work with the whole chamber to ease cost of living, improve the NHS, grow the economy and protect the environment.

The first minister said that with a record pro-independence majority in parliament between SNP and Green MSPs, the public had made it known "loud and clear" that it wanted independence, and that he would "seek to abide by those wishes".

He insisted that his government was ready to deliver "ambitious, practical" plans to move towards independence.

The SNP won a clear victory at the Holyrood election, but did not secure an outright majority.

This means Swinney's government will need help from other parties to pass laws.

Following the election of SNP veteran Kenneth Gibson as presiding officer, the SNP cohort has been cut to 57 MSPs - eight short of a majority.

To win the nomination for first minister, candidates needed to gain more votes than all of their rivals combined. The vote was repeated until this happened, with the lowest-scoring candidate eliminated in each round.

Reform UK Scotland and Labour finished a distant second place in the election, returning 17 MSPs each.

The Greens won a record 15 seats, followed by the Conservatives on 12 and the Lib Dems on 10.

Swinney won the nomination after three rounds of voting, with Alex Cole-Hamilton of the LibDems and Tory Russell Findlay eliminated in the first two rounds of voting.

Making their pitches to MSPs, opposition leaders all called for action to bring down the cost of living and improve the NHS. There were also repeated warnings about the public becoming disillusioned with politics.

Reform's Malcolm Offord claimed the SNP had created a "broken system of high taxation and welfare dependency", arguing that only his party could deliver "prosperity for every Scot".

Labour leader Anas Sarwar, acknowledging it had been a disappointing election for his party, said the parliament had a responsibility to take on "the politics of fear and blame" and win over a "scunnered" public.