Voters, I calculate, are driven by a range of motivations. Chiefly, duty, habit and effect. Each is demonstrably weakened in this age of anxiety. The sense of a duty to vote, to participate in a hard-won democracy, has palpably lessened over generations. There are few signs of that being resurrected. Habit is more ingrained. The custom of popping out to the polling station. But that habit may be under strain – and does not extend to individual parties. Far fewer, I reckon, will faithfully follow family voting patterns.

But effect intrigues me most. What consequences do people expect from their decision to vote? I reckon that the anticipation of effect is also in decline, leading to weakened motivation. In short, folk feel their lives are in a mess – and they have little hope that voting for a particular party, perhaps for any party, will make a measurable difference. This is what I have long called the scunner factor. And it is present today in vast volume.

Now, political cynicism is ingrained. You will be familiar with the trope. “They’re all the same, they’re only in it for themselves, don’t vote, it only encourages them.” Down the generations, I have been occasionally obliged to adopt an upbeat tone to disguise my instinctive weariness over such opinions – which are frequently advanced as if they were revealed truth rather than platitude.

No, I will chirp. There are consequences to voting. The parties are not identical. They have distinctly different views on the economy, on taxation, on public spending – and on the constitutional future of our nation, Scotland. I am doing so now, in this lacklustre campaign. Because I believe it to be true that voting has outcomes. I believe further........

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