This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.

Is Doctor Faustus a secret member of the SNP’s inner circle? You’d be forgiven for imagining that the party forged a pact with the Devil, that Mephistopheles promised them decades in power in return for the souls of every First Minister.

No matter what the SNP does – or increasingly doesn’t do – there’s barely a dent in support. It’s remarkable. No party is so Teflon in Britain.

To many – especially hardline unionists – it’s baffling. How, they wonder, can a party still be in power after it was rocked by scandals, caught up in police investigations, failed to honour promises on everything from health and education to policing and the environment, got itself embroiled in culture war firestorms, and ditched multiple policies whenever it suited?

Well, if you paid attention to events this week you’d have divined the answer to this seeming mystery. For this week, the SNP did precisely nothing and yet it still continues secure in the knowledge that Holyrood is an easy win come 2026.

Even when the SNP sits on its hands, even when it rows backwards, even when it simply repeats the same lines it’s been repeating for years, it remains safe.

Why? The hard truth for unionists is that Labour and the........

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