Ten years ago, the SNP under the leadership of Alex Salmond soar to power on the back of New Labour's gradual erosion of support in scotland. The irony was that the Additional Member System used to elect Members of the Scottish Parliament through a combination of First-Past-the-Post and Proportional Representation was meant to stop the Nationalists from achieving an overall majority. Yet in 2011, they did just that. Despite an independence defeat in 2014, they seemed invincible after the next year's General Election. But like with every government that has been in power for ten years, people are growing tired of the Nationalists.
It is fair to say that one day we will be discussing the strange death of SNP Scotland.
'Nicola Sturgeon is contaminating the SNP brand'
Nicola Sturgeon fails to realise she is slowly contaminating her party's brand, despite once being one of its greatest assets. She seems to have consistently ignored opinion polls suggesting the majority of SNP voters supported leaving the EU last year. Driven by her bid for independence, she has disregarded polls showing the majority of voters oppose another referendum. If she loses 12 seats to the Scottish Tories, this should send a message to the First Minister that Scots used the ballot to protest against a second independence poll.
Yet the Nationalists' defeat greatly depends upon the ability of the unionist parties to improve their own images.
Ruth Davidson is performing tremendously well as the Scottish Tories' leader. However if the Conservatives in Westminster embarrass themselves and poison their own national brand, this could hamper a Scottish Tory revival.
'Strange death of SNP Scotland is imminent'
Labour and the Liberal Democrats in Scotland need to get their act together also.
Their dithering over Ms Sturgeon's strength has caused her to dominate the Scottish landscape for too long. Where is the same pride in the Union the Scottish Tories have?
If they fail to retract huge swathes of support lost since 2007, it all falls down to Ms Davidson to rescue Scotland from the Nationalists. She is finally onto something here, and if the Scottish Conservatives increase their support, the strange death of SNP Scotland is imminent.
