The new Labour government, so slick in opposition, started tripping itself up almost immediately on taking office. The decision to axe winter fuel payments for all but the poorest pensioners landed badly and embarrassing revelations about who paid for Victoria Starmer’s clothes triggered a cynical public still angry about Tory sleaze.

Sir Keir Starmer watched his net approval ratings crash from 11 in July, to -38 just three months later, the biggest collapse in approval of any modern election-winning British Prime Minister on taking office. This was supposed to be the government of change and hope, but both were AWOL.

Yes, for the SNP, things were looking up. This blundering start by Labour finally took the heat off them. The election result itself was painful for John Swinney’s party, seeing them lose a vast tranche of seats and leaving them with just nine, but that was foreseen and unavoidable given the fiasco around Humza Yousaf’s departure from office just eight weeks earlier.

Read more Rebecca McQuillan

Looking ahead, the SNP now had something to work with. Starmer was looking more hapless than they had dared hope. He’d sold himself as a safe pair of hands, but the departure of his chief of staff Sue Gray to placate bitter internal factions who were leaking like Tories, raised legitimate questions about how competent he really was. The SNP’s strategy all along had been to try morally and politically to outflank Labour on its own ground, condemning the two-child policy, standing against austerity and portraying Labour as Tory-lite. Labour were making it all so easy.

Ah well. It........

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