Clutching at straws: if there's a movement to the Tories in Scotland, might there be a smaller movement to the SNP when people sense the danger? Or is the SNP vote maxed out/Labour vote at its absolute floor?
I think the SNP vote in 2015 was the outlier. So it's not really a story about the SNP vote dropping - taken over a longer period, it's risen remarkably.
I think what happened in 2015 is that the Labour anti-Tory vote went to the SNP. In that election, the indyref1 was only just behind us, and most of the public thought independence was now off the table for the foreseeable.
Things have changed. Brexit meant that the Better Together promise of "vote No to stay in Europe" had been shown to be shoddy. Put together with the big Remain majority in Scotland, independence is back on the table.
The Scottish Tories played a very single-minded campaign from that point. They became about the Union and nothing else. Even when the SNP weren't talking about independence, the Tories were. I was away for a few days last week, on my return I had four Tory leaflets through my door ostensibly about the local government elections, but devoted entirely to the indyref2.
It appears to be paying off.
So, yes, the polarisation might push the SNP vote up a little, but I don't think the Labour vote has far to fall from here. And those still clinging to Labour at this point are going to be very anti-SNP.
It's going to be a story of voters weighing up whether they're more anti-Tory than pro-Union. And what kind of Union they're willing to defend.
