THERE was a moment on Saturday when it felt like we’d never get the final election result. We were all aware of the reasons why the count took so much longer this year but still, it felt like an eternity.

This wasn’t helped by the fact that so much of the commentary was centred around the same issue.

Much like political soundbites, repetition can become very draining when coupled with excitement.

On a loop, we were subjected to the same circular conversation about “the mandate”.

This wasn’t a question about whether the winning party would have a mandate to implement their policies on housing, the NHS or the economic recovery from the pandemic. It wasn’t even so broad as to include an analysis of whether the winning party would have a mandate to form a government.

This was a granular, specific, indyref2-only mandate.

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It is a Scottish phenomenon. Nobody asked whether Boris Johnson, with his 80-seat majority won in a first-past-the-post system at Westminster in 2019, had a mandate to pursue Brexit or eat burgers in his pants at his desk in 10 Downing Street.

Only in Scotland do we allow the election losers so much airtime to tell the winners which parts of their manifesto they are allowed to pursue.

It’s exhausting and unproductive.

You now know what the outcome of Thursday’s election was so I won’t bore you with all the details. Suffice to say, the SNP – as expected – won and the “say no to indyref2” parties lost by some considerable distance.

What I’m interested in is how we got here. How did we end up with election results coverage that was all-consumed with a patently ridiculous proposition where we apply a first-past-the-post standard to a proportional system of voting.

There are three main culprits responsible for this inane distortion of political reality. As so many horror stories do, it started with the Scottish Tories. When you’ve lost every Scottish Parliament election you’ve ever fought, it’s important to manage expectations.

The National:

To their credit, they didn’t go into the campaign promising to beat the SNP. They didn’t even promise to stop the SNP winning enough seats to form a minority government.

They promised to stop them achieving what is (nearly) impossible anyway: winning a majority of seats in a system that is designed to make such an outcome fiendishly difficult.

I could promise to stop George Clooney marrying me. But that doesn’t mean I should get credit because every day he remains happily married to his current wife.

The Scottish Tories lowered the bar so much that they’ll have to dig it up in time for the next election. They promised nothing and then shouted about what an amazing achievement it was that they managed to pull it off.

Which brings us to our next culprit: the media. Not all journalists and not all broadcasters regurgitated the Tory "mandate" test – but enough did. Enough to allow it to completely dominate two days of election results analysis.

When they asked, time and time again, "Is there a mandate for indyref2 if the SNP don’t win a majority?", they legitimised the false, illogical argument that the Tories used as a campaign tool.

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In every other election, in every other country of the UK, the winning party automatically has a “mandate” to seek parliamentary approval for their manifesto commitments. On the subject of indyref2, the rules have been changed but Unionist parties haven’t even had the good grace to try to explain what they now are.

These are political calculations, made by parties with their own interests in mind. “The mandate” is a fiction. Even if the SNP had broken the system and won an overall majority, does anybody seriously believe Douglas Ross would have popped up on TV to say: “Well done. Mandate unlocked. Enjoy indyref2!”?

Of course not. He would have said that now is not the time, focus on the recovery, and that he doesn’t want to see another ‘’divisive’’ independence referendum. Which is why the SNP also need to accept some of the blame for this situation.

During the campaign, I dedicated a whole column to the obvious trap that the SNP were falling into. They didn’t do nearly enough to point out the ridiculousness of setting the test of election success at winning an overall majority. They comprehensively failed to manage expectations and what we saw this weekend was a direct consequence of that.

But the election is over now. The SNP won and there IS a mandate for indyref2. The next few months will be a battle of strategy and communication as much as anything else. If the SNP have learned anything from this election campaign it should be that it’s no good reacting to the framing of the Tories. They need to get in front and set the agenda.