Risk lies amid opportunities for both Sturgeon and Cameron

And among today's appointments is likely to be David Mundell as the next Secretary of State for Scotland. Indeed, given he's (still) the only Conservative MP north of the border, David Cameron will have had little choice. His immediate priority will be steering a new Scotland Bill through the House of Commons.

Over the weekend it became clear the Prime Minister was not, as some will have been urging him, to call the SNP's bluff and offer "full fiscal responsibility", for the perfectly valid reason that it wouldn't represent a good "deal" for Scotland, and will instead stick by the broad outline of Smith. Talk of a "federal" settlement, meanwhile, remains just that: talk.

That doesn't mean important points of detail won't change as the legislation is debated and scrutinized (mainly by the SNP) in Parliament. As one Tory insider told me at the weekend, they view Smith as the "base point" of what finally emerges.

Indeed the most significant negotiations will concern the "fiscal framework" that will accompany any additional powers, not abolition of the Barnett Formula as such but nevertheless a pretty comprehensive recalibration. John Swinney met the Chancellor before the election to agree the parameters of this, and both Scottish and UK civil servants have been working on it ever since.

It is fiendishly complicated, but won't amount to the "full fiscal autonomy" demanded by the SNP. But it can't be emphasised enough that if an agreement is reached it will primarily be in the hands of Nicola Sturgeon and the Prime Minister rather than "the 56". Sure, they'll get to debate and vote on the legislation, but its form will be decided well before that.

As the First Minister made clear again yesterday, she's in charge, not Alex Salmond or Angus Robertson. It's also undeniably the case Ms Sturgeon has a mandate to demand, as she did yesterday, that Mr Cameron "move beyond" Smith, although at the same time the Conservatives will remind her that she too signed up to the Commission's recommendations.

In fact, one of the unintended consequences of last week's elections is that it makes the constitutional debate, at least at an elite inter-governmental level, a lot tidier and politically more straightforward. For the last few years there have been way too many cooks, an uneasy alliance of Tories, LibDems and Labourites all pushing their own agendas, often several at once.

Now it will basically be a bilateral Conservative/SNP negotiation, which although unlikely to satisfy the Scottish Government, will at least be businesslike, for both the Prime and First Minister are very businesslike politicians. The UK Government also hopes the presence of so many SNP MPs in London will neutralise its "grievance" agenda; i.e., it'll prove rather difficult for it to continue attacking the "Westminster system" while being its third-largest party.

At the same time there's a realisation at Westminster that the new Conservative government needs to "bind" together more coherently different constitutional debates in Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and England. Before the election William Hague was careful not to rule out a UK-wide constitutional convention, and that remains a possible course of action.

Meanwhile this Parliament is likely to be dominated by ongoing debates about two Unions, British and European. On the former, the First Minister has been admirably consistent and clear that her party's Westminster mandate will not amount to a second independence referendum. For that to transpire, it seems to me that three conditions need to be met.

First, the SNP needs to secure an overall majority at next May's Holyrood elections, and do so on the basis of a manifesto commitment to hold another plebiscite at some stage in the future. Given the party's current levels of support, a second majority is highly likely, while given that every SNP manifesto since 2001 has included a referendum pledge, it seems unlikely 2016 will be an exception.

Second, there needs to be what the First Minister has called a "material change" in public opinion, for it goes without saying that the SNP will only push for another referendum when it's clear they're likely to win it. Academic analysis of other constitutional referendums suggests a ten-point lead is necessary in order to secure a change proposition, so I suspect that only when opinion polls show a 60/40 split will the SNP reconsider its options. And given the backdrop of another Tory government, further austerity and welfare cuts, such a shift isn't impossible.

Not to forget an in/out referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union by the end of 2017, which Ms Sturgeon has regularly cited as a point at which the Scottish Question could be reopened. This, however, assumes a specific outcome, i.e. Scotland voting to stay in and England (or rUK) opting to come out, but although several Nationalists appear to take this result for granted, it isn't supported by any polling evidence, which not only shows around one-third of Scots supporting Brexit, but increasing support across the UK for remaining part of the Brussels club.

That isn't to say it'll all be plain sailing, even for a majority Conservative government. In many respects David Cameron has set himself up to fail when it comes to "renegotiating" the UK's membership of the EU, while as last year's Scottish referendum demonstrated, a European ballot is unlikely to draw a line under the issue. If there's a "Yes" vote, a formal Tory Party split isn't out of the question.

Conservatives are also acutely aware the Euro referendum campaign cannot simply be a re-run of Better Together. It has to be bottom up rather than top down, although campaigning for continued UK membership might also highlight some of the contradictions in Nationalist thinking: it will look quite odd, for example, to witness the SNP arguing that Brexit would damage Scottish jobs and the economy having rejected a similar analysis regarding the consequences of independence.

There are other risks for the SNP during the next Parliament, not least quixotically high expectations as to what its 56 MPs might be able to achieve. On Saturday Ms Sturgeon said their "priority" would be ending austerity, which reminded me that in 1987 50 Scottish Labour MPs headed south promising to combat Thatcherism. It strikes me that their chances of success are about as good as those of the "feeble 50" nearly thirty years ago.

Meanwhile "the 56" will be up against majority Tory government, which even its most tribal elements must grudgingly concede was an impressive personal achievement for David Cameron. But for the SNP the stars are not yet aligned for another independence push. As unlikely as it looks at the moment, it's perfectly possible we'll get to the end of this Parliament in 2020 without any significant change in the political landscape.