A sausages spat? Surely we’ve bigger fish to fry?

RAGNAROK. Götterdämmerung. The ancient peoples believed the world would end with quite the bang but – as with the Roman Empire – epochs often fizzle out in modest setbacks.

Could it be the same with the oncemighty Nationalists? They took Britain to the edge of destruction in 2014 but are now reduced to squabbling over the Union flag on packs of square sausage.

There is a fin de siècle feel about this. Nicola Sturgeon looks tired after dragging her Cabinet of second-prizes along for four long years.

She still operates like the small-town lawyer she once was, skimming through the briefing papers on the steps of the court. But there have been mis-steps.

Her gravest was her absolute conviction that Brexit would revivify the moribund independence campaign.

It has done no such thing and now Miss Sturgeon sits atop a powder keg of a party in which many want another independence vote as soon as possible while Scotland at large shrugs and keeps on trying to make ends meet.

In the SNP glory days, the plan was to run the country well while driving forward a legislative agenda that gradually made Scotland and England different.

Bathed in the soporific waters of diligence, voters could be persuaded independence was not a great leap.

Trouble is, competence proved a myth and the paucity of talent at the top has been cruelly exposed time and again.

On health, the party once boasted of being ‘the guardians of the NHS’. Under Shona Robison, dithering Mavis Wilton of politics, A&E targets have been missed so often as to be irrelevant and bed blocking is still a blight.

There is a GP crisis. Paediatrics, radiography… you name it, it’s in trouble.

What must prove the final nail in the career of a woman so at sea she cannot see the shore is broke health boards raiding charity funds. Some guardians.

Education is the benchmark by which the SNP wants to be judged. Well, the verdict’s in and it’s a harsh one.

The Curriculum for Excellence has limited the life choices of a generation.

Derek Mackay is, bafflingly, seen still as a rising star, though his ruinously expensive tax changes are biting and chasing away the brightest and best.

We were assured a Scottish state would soon be up and running if we voted Yes, but look at Jeane Freeman struggling to get the new touchy-feely Scottish benefits system off the ground.

THE talk is of dignity and respect (read unaffordable expense) but the nasty Tories have been asked to hang on to control longer while Jeane tries to get her act together.

Strange days when Pete Wishart – his use of vile ‘Nawbags’ pandered to the dregs of his party’s support – talks sense. He blamed the loss of a third of MPs and 500,000 votes on Sturgeon’s Indyref 2 mania and he’s not wrong.

The shadows grow longer in Bute House and it’s later than Miss Sturgeon thinks. A cataclysmic rending of the sky, the twilight of the gods?

No. The SNP are going down to the sound of bickering over what flag goes on Lorne sausage.