A minority government scrambling for support might look chaotic but the Scottish Parliament was designed to encourage rival parties to do deals.

The vision for devolution was to get away from the adversarial atmosphere of Westminster, using a different electoral system to allow smaller parties a bigger voice and to encourage consensus.

There was no sign of that on Monday when Humza Yousaf announced his resignation after clumsily ending a power-sharing arrangement with the Scottish Greens, ejecting them from his government.

With 63 MSPs to the opposition’s 65, that left him trying to secure support to carry on in office, a task made more urgent by the tabling of motions of no confidence in his leadership and his government.

The Glasgow Pollok MSP tried to persuade the scorned Greens to back him, to no avail; rejected a deal with the sole MSP from Alex Salmond’s Alba party; and, facing a humiliating parliamentary defeat, promptly announced his resignation.