The Greens are now Glasgow's kingmakers - what will they do with the power?

If the campaigning in the run up to last week's elections felt flat or frustrating – and let's face it, it largely fluctuated between both – the results day was livelier than expected.

Even compared to 2017, in the post-Brexit vote and post-independence vote fug, this year's local election campaign desperately uninspiring.

For the main parties, there seemed to be little more effort than them all pointing finger at each other and saying, "At least we're not that guy". 

Petty squabbles and national issues were the campaigns' focus. 

Scottish Labour, in particular, played a blinder with an election leaflet highlighting issues that were not only not devolved to local authorities but were not even devolved to Holyrood.

Far from being a campaign on local issues, it was a messy stramash.

Enter, then, the Scottish Greens. 

I interviewed new Southside Central candidate Elaine Gallagher at the count in the Emirate's arena on Friday and asked her what she thought had led to the Greens election success.

What she said resonated - the party had asked local people what they wanted and then listened. 

Of course, it's more nuanced than that. Multiple factors come in to play and you can't cleanly remove from the equation whether or not people want Scottish independence or how they feel about Partygate. 

Throughout the election campaign, when I asked, I said I thought constituents were genuinely concerned with the fundamentals – rubbish and roads.

You can talk about constitutional politics until the cows come home but people need to live in safe, clean areas and it's that simple. 

The Tories, needless to say, were hamstrung by the shenanigans at Westminster and there wasn't an awful lot they could do about that, particularly after party leader Douglas

Ross's foolish decision to u-turn and back Boris Johnson. 

Absolutely, the SNP did very well. Labour is rightly delighted by its performance. But the stand out success was the Greens.

The SNP lost two votes on 2017 and came away with 37 seats while Labour gained five to take 36 seats. The number of Tory seats fell from eight to two, including the loss of David Meikle.

Mr Meikle had represented Pollokshields ward since 2007 and, whatever you might think of his party's policies, for a long time he was a popular figure who worked faithfully and successfully to represent the area.

He was one of the surprise losses in this election, alongside the SNP's Mhairi Hunter in Southside Central, to be replaced by Ms Gallagher of the Greens.

Langside ward backed the Green candidate Holly Bruce with the most first preference votes, beating the current SNP council leader Susan Aitken.

It was interesting to hear people express surprise that Southside Central would elect a Green candidate. It does a disservice to Danny Alderslowe, a Green councillor who represented the ward back in the hazy days before Toryglen was reassigned to Langside. 

But a year is a long time in politics and 10 years a lifetime so perhaps Green input in the community is too distant for many to remember.

By the close of play the Greens had taken a historic 10 votes and now stand in the enviable position of being Glasgow's kingmakers. 

They could join forces with the SNP to make an SNP/Greens coalition, as in the Scottish Government, and create a joint administration. 

Or they could go with a confidence and supply set up, which would fall short of being a coalition but whereby they agree to back the SNP on specific votes on budgets and spending but get support in return for their own policy wants. 

The parties have already demonstrated they work well together with the Greens and SNP joining forces on four out of five budgets in the last term. 

Anas Sarwar was asked last week whether his party would form coalitions in local authorities and he said no, emphatically not. That's not to say local members wouldn't go against him, but it seems unlikely.

What does seem likely is the Greens manoeuvring themselves into a position of real influence in the City Chambers, whether they team up with the SNP or Labour or not.

Glasgow already has some ambitious climate targets lined up in the coming years, such as becoming carbon neutral by 2030, and with the influence at George Square we could see meaningful progress on this and other hot topics for the city, such as bike lanes, housing standards and even the dreaded bins.

Who would have guessed such a sub-standard election campaign could lead to this interesting new chapter for the City Chambers.