Eight of the biggest casualties of the Holyrood election

While a record number of MSPs stood down at this election, plenty of veterans still sought a return to Holyrood.

But as several well-kent candidates proved, experience only goes so far.

From government ministers to a former party leader, 22 MSPs lost their seats in the Scottish Parliament.

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Undoubtedly the biggest name to lose his place in parliament was Angus Robertson, a former SNP cabinet minister, deputy leader and Westminster leader.

His former seat, Edinburgh Central, was a top target for the Scottish Greens, who selected former co-leader and government minister Lorna Slater for the contest.

Her win made history - the first time the party had taken a constituency seat.

But even they were surprised with the margin of the victory, with Robertson finishing a distant third place behind Labour - the first time since 2011 that the SNP had not finished in the top two of a constituency contest.

Added to the ignominy was the sight of a dejected Robertson lined up beside a candidate dressed as a giant bird, protesting the traditional guga hunt of young seabirds in the Western Isles.

Robertson had faced accusations of paying insufficient attention to constituency matters, while party members had not forgotten his controversial meeting with Israel's deputy ambassador in 2024.

This is not the SNP heavyweight's first election setback - having suffered a shock defeat to the Tories in the 2015 general election.

Robertson managed to come back from that defeat, though he will need even greater powers of recovery to return to frontline politics after this week's result.

Another significant SNP departure came in Glasgow Southside, Nicola Sturgeon's former stomping ground.

The party's candidate, Kaukab Stewart, was the first woman of colour to be elected to the Scottish Parliament in 2021, winning Glasgow Kelvin.

Within three years, the former primary school teacher had secured a ministerial post and was selected to succeed Sturgeon in her former seat.

Had she been re-elected, Stewart may have had a realistic chance of a cabinet position in the next parliament.

But her progress up Holyrood's greasy poll was halted by Holly Bruce, a Green councillor who closely followed Slater's historic constituency win, with the SNP vote collapsing by 32.5% since 2021.

Former Scottish Conservative leader Jackson Carlaw has been a fixture at Holyrood for almost 20 years, having first been elected in 2007.

That streak came to an end on Friday in the leafy constituency of Eastwood, south-west of Glasgow.

Carlaw, who had a brief stint in charge of the Tories in 2020 before being succeeded by Douglas Ross, had held the seat since 2016.

A former car salesman, he was defeated by the SNP's Kirsten Oswald, the party's former deputy Westminster leader.

Sandesh Gulhane had been something of a poster boy for the Scottish Tories after being elected in 2021.

The GP, who continued to do locum work throughout the campaign, was the obvious choice as health spokesman, leading the party's contributions on NHS performance.

Born and raised in London, Gulhane moved to Scotland in 2011. His wife Punam Krishan, also a doctor, is a TV personality and previously appeared on Strictly Come Dancing.

However, Gulhane was unable to find a remedy for the Conservatives in Glasgow, which now has no Tory MSP for the first time in the history of the devolved Scottish Parliament.

Former Scottish Labour leadership contender Monica Lennon certainly made her mark during a decade in the Scottish Parliament.

The former Central Scotland MSP, who was narrowly defeated by Anas Sarwar in the 2021 leadership contest, is best known for passing a members bill which made Scotland the first country in the world to make period products free for all.

She had frontbench roles under Kezia Dugdale and Richard Leonard, but under Sarwar was kept on the backbenches, sometimes acting as a left-wing critic of the party leadership.

In recent years she steered an "ecocide" bill through parliament which could have led to the bosses of major polluters being jailed for up to 20 years.

Although MSPs agreed the general principles of the bill, and despite passionate appeals from Lennon, it did not pass before the parliament broke up for the election.

She lost out to the SNP in Rutherglen and Cambuslang on Thursday.

Jamie Greene's major moment in the spotlight during his time at Holyrood came when he defected from the Tories to the Liberal Democrats.

A West of Scotland MSP since 2016, he had seemed a more natural fit in Ruth Davidson's Conservatives than the more right-wing iteration under Russell Findlay.

He unsuccessfully campaigned for the Tory leadership in 2024, pledging a "radical shake-up" of the party's strategy.

Greene is openly gay and has been a prominent supporter of LGBT+ rights in Holyrood, including support for controversial self-identification gender recognition reforms.

Departing the Tories, Greene accused them of caving in to a "Reform-lite" agenda.

He lost out in both the Inverclyde constituency and the West Scotland list.

For the first time since the devolved Scottish Parliament convened in 1999, there is no member of the Ewing political dynasty in the chamber.

Fergus Ewing - the son of SNP legend Winnie, husband of former MSP Margaret, and brother of recent parliamentarian Annabelle - had held the Inverness constituency since devolution.

A former SNP minister, he stood as an independent this year after becoming disillusioned with the party. He was particularly unhappy when it forged closer ties with the Greens, who he branded "wine bar revolutionaries".

Campaigning as an independent motivated by local issues like the dualling of the A9 and A96, he won more than a fifth of the vote - but was defeated by his former party.

Few could claim to have had a more eventful time in the last parliament than Ash Regan.

She began the Holyrood term as community safety minister in Nicola Sturgeon's SNP administration. She ended it as an independent, with a stint with Alba in between.

Regan resigned from the SNP government in 2022 due to her opposition to gender recognition reforms.

The following year she launched an ambitious bid for the party leadership, losing out to Humza Yousaf.

A few months later Regan defected to Alba, citing the SNP's "wavering commitment" to independence.

She tasted further defeat in the 2025 Alba leadership contest, before quitting the party to focus on her efforts to criminalise paying for sexual services.

The prostitution bill failed to pass before the election, with Regan losing out as an independent candidate on the Edinburgh and Lothians East regional list.