Things are looking up. For so long the Tories have looked utterly bereft, cast adrift by their former supporters. Alone and friendless. It couldn’t have happened to nicer people. But now they find themselves with company – albeit not the bedfellows they might have expected or even wanted. For the SNP is now facing its own electoral Armageddon. The latest polls suggest the party could win only 15 seats out of a possible 57 on 4 July. Cast your mind back to 2015, when you couldn’t move for Scots Nats MPs. It’s not quite a wipeout, but it’s not far off. At the very least it’s a profound existential crisis.
Not that you would have known that from its election launch event four weeks ago. That was a massive rally, rammed with activists. The SNP has traditionally been a master at marshalling its troops. But things have changed somewhat over the last month. You can sense the optimism draining out of its campaign. The smiles are slightly more fixed. The conversations more terse. There’s a tetchiness rising to the surface. Say one word out of line and you feel like you could get your head bitten off.
