THE decades-old toxicity of the Margaret Thatcher political brand on the doorsteps of South Lanarkshire appears to have finally dissipated.

Seasoned campaigners from the Scottish Conservatives pounding the streets of Larkhall, Hamilton and Cambuslang have heard not a single mention of the poll taxing, milk snatcher of yore in recent weeks.

Instead, the names tripping off the tongue of an electorate moving to support the Conservatives in their droves are those of current Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson and even Westminster leader Theresa May.

Hamish Stewart, 70, the constituency chair for the South Lanarkshire Conservatives, who has just retired as group leader for the council and did not stand this time, has been enjoying this new popularity.

He said: "When I was going around the doors the Ruth Davidson effect was palpable and people were actually telling us not to worry because they were voting for Theresa's party.

"A decade ago you would go to doors and people would say "I cannot vote for you because I remember Maggie Thatcher", but we simply didn't get that this time."

The impact of the switch has been staggering. Before the current council election the party had just four councillors out of a total of 67, but by just after 4pm on Friday there were 14 out of a total of 64.

Another clue as to why the vote has swung in such numbers is the large blue rosette on the suit lapel of an ageing Tory supporter nearby which, strikingly, has the full title of the Conservative and Unionist Party writ large across it.

Mr Stewart said: "A lot of this is about the second independence referendum. Even if we didn't mention the issue, the people on the street were talking to us about it and saying they had had enough."

While the rise of the Conservatives in traditional Labour-supporting strongholds such as the former mining town of Larkhall has been remarkable the South Lanarkshire election was clearly won by the SNP.

The Nationalists secured 27 councillors compared to Labour's 21 making them the biggest party and in pole position to take control, either as a minority administration or in coalition with the Labour Party.

There are also suggestions the Labour Party could, as it has done in the past, work with the Conservatives to prevent the Nationalists taking power, but Aileen Campbell, the current SNP MSP for Clydesdale, warned against such a move.

"The momentum is with us and we can see again with these results that South Lanarkshire has fundamentally changed from a place that was "aye Labour" to one that supports the SNP," she said.

"We believe the manifesto that our local councillors stood on can fundamentally transform politics in South Lanarkshire because communities here have not been allowed to feel in charge of their own destinies.

"We will not go into coalition with the Conservatives because of the way they have misused power at Westminster and because we have the largest number of councillors we have a clear mandate to take forward our pledges in this administration. If Labour seek coalition with the Conservatives then we have to ask fundamental questions about where their Labour's priorities lie."

As they assessed the impact of the vote, members of the South Lanarkshire Labour Party, who have run this council since it was formed, expressed a bitterness about the tactics used by the Conservatives to focus a local election on national issues.

Monica Lennon, the sitting Labour MSP for Central Scotland, said: "It is disappointing not to come out of this not as the largest party, but we did go into it feeling a bit like the underdog and we have gone out with good local candidates and managed to get a lot of them re-elected.

"Where we have seen the big losses is where the Tories have done well and, in places where the candidates don't live anywhere near the ward, that can only mean there is a strong anti-independence, anti-referendum vote which is nothing to do with emptying your bins."

If there is a footnote it should go to veteran Liberal Democrat politician Robert Brown, a former deputy education minister in the former Scottish Executive who was once again elected as councillor for Rutherglen South at the age of 69.

"I have always taken the view that politics is about changing things for the better and the same applies at the local level as it does at the national level," he said.

"You meet a lot of people who are turned off politics, but democracy is a high ideal and being a politician is a calling. You have to have a motivation to do the late nights and the canvassing and I still feel that calling."