IF ALEX Salmond had been given a pound every time he had been told that his honeymoon with the voters was over, well, he wouldn't necessarily be a rich man but he could probably afford a decent flutter on the 3:20 at Haydock. Each time his administration has faltered, so the warnings of doom and disaster have come raining in. But here we are, 17 months into the life of this administration and the First Minister's hegemony appears, still, to be virtually unchallenged.

Something happened last week, though, that suggests a turning point, of sorts, has been reached. It was nothing as dramatic as a series of government defeats on a crucial bill or a succession of gaffes by ministers. It was simply the decision by the opposition parties to set up a vote on a government policy – ahead of the policy actually being introduced – leading to a certain and planned defeat for the SNP administration.

The Conservatives decided to call a vote on the government's plans to stop under-21s buying booze from shops, aware that they had the backing of the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and Labour.

The Tory motion was passed, by 72 votes to 47 but then ministers made it clear they would press on regardless, determined to do something to tackle Scotland's binge-drinking culture.

On 16 May last year, when he was elected First Minister by the parliament, Salmond said these words: "My commitment today is to reach across the parties and try to build a majority, issue by issue, on the things that matter to the people of Scotland."

He knew, as did all the MSPs in the chamber, that Scottish politics was entering a new era, a time when bartering and negotiating behind the scenes would become the norm and where political foes would have to reach agreement to secure shared aims.

But last week's vote by the parliament, and the Scottish Government's subsequent decision to ignore it, shows that we are no nearer that new era than we were in May last year.

The Scottish Conservatives called for minority government long before it was delivered by the voters. They were the first to put it to their own use, offering their support to the SNP's Budget in return for major concessions on drugs, police numbers and business rates.

It was, therefore, somewhat ironic that it was the Conservatives who contrived to set up last week's vote. As far as the Conservatives are concerned then, consensus is something that they are willing to turn to when it suits them, and only then.

But the lack of progress towards consensus has been just as patchy on the government side. Salmond talked sincerely of "compromise and concession, intelligent debate and mature discussion" when he was elected First Minister and then what did he do? The first time he was faced with a really crucial vote, on the Budget, he threatened to resign and force a new set of elections – hardly acting out the language of consensus and harmony.

But it is not just the politicians who are to blame. The morning after last week's vote, Kenny MacAskill, the justice secretary, went on the radio to reaffirm his commitment to tackling Scotland's booze culture.

"Well, parliament certainly gave you a bloody nose, didn't it Cabinet secretary," was the first question he was asked – another clear example of the failure of all of us in the political process to "talk the talk" on consensus.

The real reason why we may have reached a turning point is because the Scottish Government is only now starting to bring forward its most contentious pieces of legislation, policies which will need cross-party support if they are to succeed.

Coming up over the next few months, ministers will have to present to parliament their alcohol plans, their local income tax proposals and their replacement for the public-private partnership scheme.

The alcohol plans provide the most scope for a new way forward. The Scottish Government's approach is simple: ministers believe that Scotland has avoided this difficult topic for too long and they want to do something.

They have come up with a series of proposals which might work, but which are also designed to provoke a debate and draw out realistic options from a nationwide discussion.

The opposition parties are clear that they do not want to see the under-21s ban for off-sales, but are willing to negotiate on the other proposals.

From this starting point, it should not be too hard to find a way forward, but the more the opposition forces defeats on the government and the more ministers entrench as a reaction to it, then the less likely it is that progress of any sort will be made.

Yes the Conservatives worked with the SNP on last year's Budget and they may do so again this year. Yes the Liberal Democrats may be able to find a way of supporting the Scottish Government's local income tax plans, but these stand out because they represent two of the only real examples of consensus politics in the past 17 months.

For most of its time, the Scottish Parliament – and the political establishment – has given the appearance that nothing has changed from the first eight years of devolution, that confrontation and partisan politics remains the norm.

Minority government can mean progress and solid achievement, it can also mean stalemate and drift and unless there is a conscious effort by all in the political process, we are in danger of being stuck in the latter.

While the media, opposition politicians and the Scottish Government still revert to the language of confrontation and still engineer votes designed to embarrass the other, that new era of consensus politics will be as far away as ever.

If that happens, then the Scottish Parliament's chances of achieving anything of substance over the next two and a half years will fade away as well.