kieran andrews political editor

Momentum means a lot in politics and it is certainly now with the Conservatives in Scotland.

The direction of travel certainly favours the Tories, as the council elections demonstrated.

No longer toxic, it would seem, the party gained seats in every part of the country, dramatically so in some areas.

That does not mean Ruth Davidson’s foot soldiers should get carried away with themselves, despite being the largest group in a host of councils across the country, including Perth and Kinross.

Sure, it shows their apparent revival at last year’s Holyrood election was not a flash-in-the-pan.

Yet when you get down to brass tacks, it is the SNP who have the most to actually celebrate.

They have become the largest party in Glasgow, having missed out on control of the George Square chambers in 2012, and now control all of Scotland’s four cities.

What Nationalist strategists should – and probably will – be worrying about, however, is whether Scottish politics is rebalancing away from their party.

The electorate does not appear to be moving back to Labour, but instead is shifting towards the Tories.

Just take a look at Dundee, the Yes city, where the election of two additional Conservative councillors cost the SNP its majority.

Seats were not just won by the Conservatives in traditional heartlands, although they performed especially well in those, but in previously unthinkables like Paisley, Cowdenbeath and Barrhead.

Asked by The Courier a rather simple question of what these results mean for the general election, an SNP spokesman said it was for opposition parties “to explain why they’re losing votes and why nobody knows what they stand for”.

This is a party on the defensive, no longer espousing the positive messages that got it elected in the first place. These election results in no way mean the SNP’s position as the dominant party in Scotland is immediately under threat, but they certainly give food for thought.