The man who will go down in SNP folklore for securing an historic election victory will today take his Holyrood oath in Gaelic and Doric as well as English.

The man who will go down in SNP folklore for securing an historic election victory will today take his Holyrood oath in Gaelic and Doric as well as English.

David Thompson, who came second in the Ross, Skye and Inverness West seat, came to greater prominence on Friday when he spotted an error in the returning officer's calculations at the Highlands & Islands List declaration.

The error would have given Labour control in the parliament.

The final declaration of the election was going to give Labour four list seats, the Tories two, Greens one and the SNP none be- fore Mr Thompson's intervention.

But once the error was spotted the winners' list was revised giving Labour three, the Tories two and the SNP two with the final seat going to Mr Thompson himself.

He will now become the first MSP to use all three of Scotland's languages when taking the oath. Previously MSPs have taken the oath in Gaelic and English or Doric and English but never in all three. Members must take their oath first in English but are then permitted to use any language they choose.

Mr Thompson said: "I want to advance all the traditional languages of Scotland and want to reflect my background of being brought up in the north-east of Scotland by using Doric but also the importance of Gaelic in the Highlands where I have made my family home and learned to speak the language."

Bashir Ahmad, the Scottish Parliament's first Asian MSP, will take his oath in his native language of Urdu. The SNP politician, who came to Scotland from Pakistan at the age of 21, topped the regional list in Glasgow.