THAT Humza Yousaf messed up was a given. He admitted as much in his resignation speech when he said he had underestimated the degree of hurt his abrupt severing of the Bute House Agreement would cause the Greens.

It was a miscalculation which alienated the party he most relied upon for support. But I wonder if - as John Swinney prepares to take the helm uncontested - Labour and the Tories feel they miscalculated too; that by seeking to capitalise on the SNP’s troubles, they whipped up troubles of their own.

Because having brought Yousaf down, what are they left with as they head into a General Election? A more experienced and well-liked First Minister, and an SNP that’s stopped fighting like rats in a sack.

This is suboptimal for Scottish Labour which has looked set to rise on the SNP’s fall (the latest poll suggested it will gain 26 Scottish seats, while the SNP will lose 24). But it is catastrophic for the Scottish Tories, who were already forecast to lose one of their six Scottish MPs, and who are facing up to the party’s worst local election results for more than 40 years along with a crushing Blackpool byelection defeat.

All of this comes with caveats. Swinney may be popular, experienced and invested with a degree of “elder statesman” gravitas but he, too, has his flaws.

His last spell as party leader ended with a visit from the infamous “men in grey kilts”. In his time as education secretary, he presided over the 2020 results debacle and faced two no confidence votes.

The SNP show support for John Swinney

His “knight on a white charger” schtick at his press conference last week was faintly embarrassing. The SNP remains in a parlous state. After 17 years in power, it is exhausted and out of ideas.

Swinney can do nothing to dispel the shadow cast by the embezzlement charges against its former chief executive Peter Murrell and - given he was criticised for a ‘lack of candour’ in his report into the Edinburgh trams........

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