Magnolia. When I was growing up, there was a lot of it about (the paint, that is – I never set eyes on the flower).

Folk stuck with magnolia for their interior decor year after year, decade after blessed decade. Why? Because it was inoffensive and familiar. Magnolia did not enhance your life much, but it was OK. It went with your rattan chairs and your tan sofa. I can see it now, glowing beigely in the light of a 60-watt bulb. Something else might well be better, but what?

The SNP is our magnolia. We’ve had the party for nearly 20 years. It is a faded version of itself. Enthusiasm for it has evaporated, but opinion is divided over what to go for instead. The nation is stuck in a rut painted off-white-with-a-hint-of-despair.

The SNP are not what most voters want. “Victory” – emerging as the largest party in next year’s election and getting first dibs at trying to form a government – is a hollow term if more than two-thirds of the population want you gone. On current polling, that’s how things stand. The SNP is on course for its worst result in 18 years, but looks likely to form the next government anyway. Being a minority government with much-diminished authority won’t feel like a famous victory.

But voters are split over who they would like to see running the country instead. While only 30 per cent of folk want John Swinney’s party, Scottish Labour is at least 10 percentage points behind. Labour is not precluded from forming a government by being in second place, but its position is greatly weakened........

© Herald Scotland