Where do the SNP go from here?

Many thought he was handing on a poison chalice to Ms Sturgeon, and yet here we are just a few short months on, and the SNP has achieved an astounding political triumph unprecedented in a General Election in Scotland.

When the dust settled it was almost an act of magnanimity to leave Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats one seat each, if only to avoid the jibes, already flowing, about Scotland being a one-party state.

But what no-one factored in was that while Scotland voted left of centre, England would vote resoundingly right of centre, sufficiently to propel David Cameron back into Downing Street. The SNP assumption had been that if the tide was in their favour in Scotland, it would be with Ed Miliband South of the Border. That way the SNP would have leverage and influence on a minority Labour government. But what clout will all these SNP backbenchers have if the Conservatives, possibly with tacit DUP support, achieve a majority?

The aftermath of this election was always going to be about managing expectation and achieving a stratospheric 56 seats only makes that task harder. If this unprecedented Westminster victory proves to be a mere protest vote, will it rebound on the SNP. They have time on their side, as Labour will go into a prolonged period of self-reflection in Scotland, but a year from now our proportional system will prevent any similar wipe-out at Holyrood.

The key in coming weeks will be for the new Tartan Army at Westminster to be disciplined and on-message while the party hierarchy works out a strategy for making a political impact. Ms Sturgeon will continue to be in demand by UK broadcasters curious about the whole "Jockalypse" phenomenon, and new MP Alex Salmond will also dominate events, of which more later.

But first the SNP have to hope that their candidate vetting has worked more efficiently than it did during their 2011 Holyrood triumph, where it turned out they had a serial wife beater in their ranks. The tiniest skeletons in any cupboards will come back to haunt them. Look what Labour did in Edinburgh South with the thinnest of evidence that the SNP candidate could be painted as a Cybernat.

Assuming no skeletons clamber into view, there is then the wider need for broader discipline. Many MPs have gone to Westminster and succumbed to temptations. Yes, that would be you Mr Joyce, but there are plenty of other examples. Every aspect of lifestyle and behaviour will be under the spotlight of a virulently anti-SNP media, and that is before we get to political discipline. Seeing this problem coming, the SNP agreed some draconian rules governing the conduct of Parliamentarians, some of which looked unpleasantly Stalinist, but which will be vital in the current spotlight.

It is an incredibly inexperienced cohort of parliamentarians with absolutely no room for error or manoeuvre. This all links into the question of what to do with the party's heaviest hitter, Alexander Elliot Salmond. The Herald has already reported that he has given Westminster group leader Angus Robertson an assurance that he will not challenge his position or his authority. But they also have the deputy leader of the party as a whole, Westminster Chief Whip Stewart Hosie.

That's a lot of chiefs, but they now have a great many indians so expanding the number of senior roles and finding a place for the talents of Mr Salmond in that bigger hierarchy should be possible. There is also the issue of linking the vastly enlarged Westminster group with their Holyrood counterparts under Ms Sturgeon's leadership.

But the First Minister has a country to run, and her top lieutenant, Finance Secretary John Swinney, has a nation's budget to run. Had there been meaningful talks to be had with Labour at Westminster, they could only have spared so much time from Holyrood duties to do that. Such talks may be less pressing now if Mr Cameron is able to govern virtually unencumbered.

This means, however, that SNP are going to need a clear strategy within what will inevitably become a less constructive role at Westminster if they are not "propping up" or "holding to ransom" (to quote Lynton Crosbie) a Miliband-led administrations.

The good news for the SNP, if not the future stability of the United Kingdom, is that David Cameron and Mr Crosbie started this fight, using visceral attacks on the SNP and Scots more widely as a blunt instrument with which to beat Labour in England. They knew this would drive thrawn Scots into the SNP camp and that was seen as a double whammy, wrecking Labour's Scottish flank.

But you reap what you sow. Anti-Scottishness in this General Election campaign has produced a corresponding reaction North of the Border, not anti-English as such but certainly hostile to certain Right-wing manifestations of British Nationalism. David Cameron said in his acceptance speech: "I want to bring our country together, our United Kingdom together," which was pretty brazen given the campaign he had just presided over.

Boris Johnson, fresh from a thumping constituency win, spoke of making Scotland "a federal offer", but the problem is that the words of both men reek of hypocrisy. Denied a constructive role by Labour's flop in England, the SNP may find themselves reduced to a guerrilla role in backbench opposition, and no-one would relish that more than Alex Salmond, who never tires of quoting Charles Stewart Parnell: "No man has the right to say to his country, 'Thus far shalt thou go and no further'."

Filibusters and boycotts, parliamentary ambushes, in short making a thorough parliamentary nuisance of themselves, may become the resort of an SNP group which had hoped to wield more constructive power.