candidate. There was also disappointment in that the SNP's share of the Scottish vote fell to 17.7% and that they finished third behind the Liberal-Democrats; this was the first time this had ever happened. The SNP's share of the vote across the Scottish Central Belt was particularly low, with some candidates only just managing to achieve a high enough share of the vote in their constituency to retain their £500 deposit. However, Alex Salmond was in buoyant mood in the aftermath of the campaign, describing the SNP's Westminster parliamentary group as "Scotland's Super Six" and also promising that the SNP would be far more competitive in the 2007 election for the Scottish Parliament. The second Salmond era The return of Salmond marked an important milestone in the SNP's ideological transformation. Already during his first stint as leader, Salmond had convinced the party to embrace gradualism and adopt "independence must be achieved by a referendum" as the new strategy – an end to the long-held nationalist suspicion of referendums as a tool for unionists to thwart the independence cause, as had been the case in the 1979 devolution referendum. With a strategy that would later be adopted by Conservative leader David Cameron, Salmond decided the only way to end New Labour's electoral dominance was to emulate it, while highlighting their few ideological differences where New Labour was less popular, such as its support for the Trident nuclear deterrent based in Scotland. Like New Labour, the SNP embraced neo-liberal economics and sought to follow the Irish model by slashing corporation tax and attracting international businesses, while ending its traditional radicalism by abandoning its plans for nationalisation and higher income taxes. Unlike New Labour, however, Salmond and her deputy Nicola Sturgeon coated their policies with a heavy douse of social democratic rhetoric in order to appear more authentically left-wing than Labour to the latter's supporters. 2007 Scottish Parliament general election The Scottish National Party was victorious in the 2007 election to the Scottish Parliament, emerging as the largest party with 47 seats. It narrowly defeated the incumbent Scottish Labour Party, which had 46 seats. The Conservatives won 17 seats, the Lib Dems 16 seats, the Greens 2 seats, and the Independent candidate Margo MacDonald was re-elected. On 16 May 2007, Alex Salmond was elected First Minister by the Parliament and sworn in the next day at the Court of Session in Edinburgh. The