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

The hip word for it is ‘manifesting’: the notion that if you dream it, it will happen. Just concentrate on getting that flat belly you want, and come next summer you’ll be the hottest bod on the beach.

Manifesting has a dark side too, obviously. If you think about something awful enough, it too can come to pass. Keep believing you’re going to fail that job interview, and you probably will.

Humans are strange creatures, particularly those who inhabit the political world.

Right now, there’s an awful lot of ‘manifesting’ going on around the prospect of a snap Scottish election. The cause is the upcoming Scottish budget. If the SNP can’t get it through Holyrood, then we may well be on the road to an early election.

There’s every chance that if the SNP was forced to call a snap election it would lose. The party’s grief is of its own making. By booting the Greens out of government, they’ve handed a weapon of destruction to Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater.

The Greens, understandably, are not best pleased with the latest programme for government offered up by John Swinney. They’re angry with a whole raft of policies which they say have been “undone, slashed, watered down or shelved” – like commitments on conversion therapy, peak rail fares, nature restoration, rent controls, and free buses for asylum seekers. It’s a “betrayal” in Green eyes.

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