Budget trigonometry
So where are we on this ? What have we learned?
Perhaps, just perhaps, that cataclysmic rhetoric is inappropriate, unhelpful and futile when we are dealing with vital public services and jobs.
I fully accept that the media must share the blame here.
We tend to demand high-energy soundbites when gentle chiding and persuasion would suit the situation better.
But, you know, the voters have long since given up listening to the ranting anyway.
Perhaps we might, all, declare a truce and revert to discursive, analytical politics.
Think of it as like alternative football chants. Instead of howling abuse, perhaps our politicians might advise their opponents, in the subtle understatement which occasionally breaks out from the stands: "You're not very good".
No, I don't think it's going to happen, either.
Another little lesson. John Swinney will be mighty careful in future when dealing with the Greens.
He thought he had a deal - although, to be fair, nothing was absolutely fixed.
He thought he had said enough, including offering a personal assurance as a minister that he would deliver the upgraded offer.
But Mr Swinney's advisers were watching Patrick Harvie when that last minute assurance was given.
The Green co-convener was shaking his head, slightly but palpably.
Seconds later, he and Robin Harper voted against the budget, ensuring its defeat.
However, they were but two.
Forty six Labour MSPs - including one returned from illness and one from maternity leave - voted against the budget, as did sixteen Liberal Democrats.
As I have written previously here, they were perfectly entitled so to do. Otherwise, there is no function in having a vote at all.
However, as I also said, consequences flow from such decisions.
Perhaps some who cast their vote against the budget thought they were registering a protest - but not thwarting the expenditure.
Perhaps they thought the budget would go through regardless.
Perhaps they, like Mr Swinney, thought the Greens would vote other than they did.
As I have also written earlier, they were perhaps not aware of the conflicting pressures confronting Mr Harvie owing to a party which is intuitively averse to political bargaining.
Perhaps they thought, as Iain Gray sought to argue, that voting down the budget need not bring crisis.
He is right in that the existing budget would continue.
However, persisting in thwarting the new budget would undoubtedly mean real problems for real people. This was not a pain-free vote.
I suspect that Mr Gray swiftly concluded as much.
I suspect, further, that he foresaw the political campaigns against his party.
Indeed, the Tories were already out on Thursday morning at Waverley Station with leaflets blaming Labour for blocking expenditure on key services, forcing up council taxes and generally advancing the timescale for Armageddon.
"Spurious", yelled Labour. "Tosh" - or some word that sounds very like it.
But, in their core, they and the Liberal Democrats knew that they risked giving a powerful weapon to the SNP and the Tories if they sustained their attack.
Plus - and I mean this most sincerely, folks - all parties were genuinely seeking a solution.
They knew that it was unacceptable to toy with £33bn.
They care. All of them. They care.
So, in various ways, Labour and the Liberal Democrats sought a deal.
Labour offered to moderate its demands.
The Liberal Democrats offered to sideline their pressure for tax cuts and to focus instead upon common, elevated ground in the search for longer-term solutions to Scotland's problems.
This might include jointly pressing with ministers for borrowing powers to accrue to the Scottish Government.
Remarkable - and, considering the public interest, commendable.
Also at Holyrood, there have been a few subterranean efforts to decry John Swinney's handling of this affair: to suggest that he offered too much to the Tories for town centre regeneration and, hence, too little to the Greens.
I don't buy that. The arithmetic wasn't straightforward. It was more like geometry or trigonometry.
It wasn't a case of: sort the Tories, then turn to the Greens.
He had to reach out, simultaneously, to all the parties - including Labour who were negotiating seriously.
He will have to do the same again next year - which is why he will seek to keep all sides as sweet as possible.
Now, as I said with mild astonishment on Reporting Scotland on Thursday night, the budget may be carried by acclaim. Isn't politics wonderful?
I'm 
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