In six weeks, we will have an incoming Labour government at Westminster. Labour will pour cold water on that sentiment. The Conservatives will big up the chances of the polls being wrong or missing some dynamic that will turn the election in their favour. But make no mistake, our drenched and embattled Prime Minister announced on Wednesday that he was crashing his Conservative government into the ground in a blaze of ignominy rather than allowing it to glide to an unceremonious end later in the year.

In Scotland, the average of May’s polls gives Labour, on 37% of the vote, a 6.5 point lead over the SNP on 30.5%. That would be enough for Labour to win 33 seats to the SNP’s 14, sweeping the SNP aside across the central belt and further afield, with Torcuil Crichton set to win Na h-Eileanan An Iar amid the mess the SNP find themselves in with their erstwhile MP Angus MacNeil. Labour would even be projected to win Dumfries and Galloway, the outgoing Conservative Scottish Secretary Alister Jack’s seat by the thinnest of margins. But this outcome of the Scottish election is not inevitable.

On one hand, things could get worse for the SNP. While Labour have had an average poll lead of 6.5 points this May, the latest poll conducted by YouGov has them ten points ahead of the SNP. That would mean 41 Scottish Labour MPs and just eight SNP MPs – a scenario in which Labour would be projected to narrowly defeat the SNP’s Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn.

Will Scots swing behind Sir Keir Starmer's party? (Image: free)

On the other, there are paths through which the SNP might claw back votes. 15% of their........

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