THE Greens were humiliated last night and Labour forced into an embarrassing reverse as MSPs overwhelmingly passed the government's £33billion budget at the second attempt.

From crisis and talk of fresh Holyrood elections a week ago, ministers were jubilant at the deals they had struck to turn round that defeat.

The Budget Bill was passed by 123 votes to those of the two Greens.

While those on the SNP benches appeared under orders to avoid gloating, no-one told the gleeful Tories, arguably the only group to emerge unscathed from recent events.

Even opponents had to laugh when Derek Brownlee, SNP finance spokesman, quipped: "At Westminster, the defeat of a Budget would bring down the government. At Holyrood, it seems, it brings down the opposition - at least, some of them."

Last week's brinkmanship of the Greens, led by MSP Patrick Harvie, cost them dear as the offer of £33million for a home insulation scheme was cut and subjected to means testing.

Finance Secretary John Swinney insisted this was to free up part of the £16m required to fund an additional 7800 apprenticeships to satisfy Labour.

But Labour could hardly celebrate this as a breakthrough deal, as it was exactly the same offer the party had rejected 10 days ago.

Labour leader Iain Gray tried to imply it got more than that by welcoming money for retraining for the unemployed - but that was already in the government's plans.

After days of exhausting negotiations, Mr Swinney observed it had all been about how to spend £100m - less than 0.3% of the overall £33bn budget.