By Steve Bargeton, political editor

HISTORY WAS made yesterday when SNP leader Alex Salmond was elected Scotland’s first nationalist First Minister.

He defeated Labour leader Jack McConnell by 49 votes to 46 and immediately set about forming the first minority administration since devolution.

There was a surprise when his cabinet team was revealed with no place for Dundee East MSP Shona Robison, the SNP front bench health spokesman in the last parliament. The health job in a much-slimmed down cabinet goes to SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon.

But yesterday was Alex Salmond’s day as he became the first nationalist to take power in the party’s 73-year history. With his wife Moira, father Robert and sister Gayle watching from the visitors’ gallery he accepted the highest office in the land.

“Today I commit myself to leadership wholly and exclusively in the Scottish national interest,” he said.

“We will appeal for support policy by policy across this chamber. That is the Parliament the people of Scotland have elected and that is the government that I will be proud to lead.”

Earlier outgoing First Minister Jack McConnell had spoken of a nation “divided” by the Holyrood election two weeks ago from which the SNP emerged victorious by a single seat.

But the new First Minister saw the complexion of the new parliament not as divided but as “diverse.”

He spoke of the “broad consensus” for the Parliament to assume “greater responsibility for the governance of Scotland,” and cited the example of one of his party’s new MSPs, Bashir Ahmad.

Mr Salmond told MSPs that when Mr Ahmad came to Glasgow to drive buses in 1961, the idea of a Scottish Parliament was “unimaginable”—and doubly so the idea of a Scots Asian sitting in a Scottish Parliament.

“But Bashir is here, and we are here, and that part of the community of Scotland is now woven into the very tartan of this Parliament,” he said.

“We are stronger, so much stronger, as a result. We are diverse, not divided.”

After eight years of Labour-Lib Dem coalition government which resulted in legislation often being forced through by their majority, he reminded MSPs of the importance of the parliament.

“All of us in this Parliament have a responsibility to conduct ourselves in a way that respects the Parliament the people have chosen to elect.

“That will take patience, maturity, and leadership on all sides of the chamber.”

Congratulating Mr Salmond on his election Mr McConnell recalled the words of Voltaire, who said that government needed both “butchers and shepherds,” reflecting that Mr Salmond would need to be more of a shepherd to secure majorities in Parliament.

“He will have our support when his decisions are right. We will, of course, not oppose for its own sake,” he said.

“But we will bring forward to the chamber, for robust debate, the policies in which we believe, too.”

Scottish Tory leader Annabel Goldie and Lib Dem leader Nicol Stephen, who put themselves forward for First Minister but were knocked out in the first round of voting, also warmly congratulated the new First Minister.

When the new Presiding Officer Alex Fergusson officially brought proceedings to a close the new First Minister left the chamber and walked, hand in hand with his wife Moira, down the stairs into the Garden Lobby. There, amid hugs and warm handshakes from supporters, he gave his first reaction to the day’s momentous events.

“You think you can imagine what it’s going to be like but, when you imagine, it’s never quite the reality. It’s a wonderful day,” he said.

Buckingham Palace confirmed that the Queen has signed the warrant appointing Mr Salmond as Scotland’s First Minister. She will receive Mr Salmond in an audience in Scotland next week.