BY Nicola Sturgeon’s reckoning, Scotland is little more than a year away from another chance to break free from the shackles of the Union.
So why do the First Minister and many of her cohorts, on the cusp of this breakthrough, look and sound as though they’ve already accepted defeat?
Miss Sturgeon has been doing the media rounds and a turn at the Fringe — like a well-practised comedian firing off one-liners, albeit to a half-empty hall.
Alex Salmond, Miss Sturgeon’s predecessor and former mentor, branded the Scottish Government’s approach to achieving independence ‘absurd’.
It certainly smacks of desperation, and among the grassroots there’s also evidence of ennui and disengagement ahead of the Supreme Court hearing in London this autumn, to decide on the legality of any referendum that might be approved at Holyrood.
At a Yes stall in Queen’s Park, in Miss Sturgeon’s Glasgow Southside constituency, business was far from brisk on a hot and sunny Saturday afternoon earlier this month, with only one or two takers — and maybe they were just looking for some shade.
Over the past 15 years, it’s been easy to feel that the SNP is here to stay and can’t be shifted — after all, many young Scots have known nothing other than a Nationalist Scotland.
But could we now be witnessing the beginning of the end of the SNP’s toxic reign, given that the hardcore support might well drain away — perhaps turning to Mr Salmond’s Alba Party — in the highly likely event that the Supreme Court case founders?