Nicola is now the sweetie who has regained her nip

THE analogy that Nicola Sturgeon has marched her supporters up to the top of the hill and now faces walking them off a cliff is the wrong one. The First Minister has been chased down a cul-de-sac by her own supporters – and onetime friends – and hasn’t been sufficiently fleet of foot to turn down some of the side streets that could allow her to avoid hitting the wall.

It is difficult to see how there will be a second referendum on independence any time soon, despite her claims. If there isn’t, her union with her job may be the one she dissolves. It is harder still to see how, given the path in front of her and the supporters behind her, the First Minister couldn’t call for one. She is in constitutional check – and it won’t be a friend calling out when she hears the word ‘mate’.

Whatever Miss Sturgeon decides to do next – and her options are severely limited – the fact she got herself into this position tells us this is an administration which is unravelling. Her predecessor, Alex Salmond, always left himself options. She has allowed pressure from him and other colleagues to box her in.

The mistake in her strategy started with the defeatist assumption there is no chance of the SNP being able to cobble together a pro-independence majority in the Scottish parliament after the 2021 election.

From there the Nationalists have imposed on themselves – and tried to impose on Prime Minister Theresa May – a completely unreasonable timetable even many pro-independence Scots think is unfair.

No one really believes Brexit will have been completed by the autumn of 2018 or the spring of 2019 – and even if it is, Scotland will not have had the time to properly assess it and make a reasoned judgment in a second independence referendum.

The presumption of defeat is rarely a good foundation on which to build a strategy – unless you are planning an evacuation. But that is what Miss Sturgeon has based her timetable upon.

If she had reserved the right to call a referendum well after the details of Brexit had been known, she could have kicked the thing down the track and sounded reasonable. Instead, after years of life coaches, makeovers and soft lens portraits, the SNP is back to the shrill tones of the 1970s. It is Scotland the Offended, with the motto: ‘We’re no huvvin’ it.’

Compare that to the Nicola Sturgeon who led her party to triumph in the 2015 UK general election. Her starting point was a long, well-argued speech against austerity economics. I thought it had flaws, but it formed a coherent basis for her campaign and sounded much more thought through than Ed Miliband’s.

Then there were the debates. I have known Miss Sturgeon since student days, though we could not be charged with being friends. Yet I, like many Scots who didn’t vote for her, was proud of how she performed against Miliband and David Cameron.

Spool forward and the sweetie of 2015 has regained her nip. The logic and coherence have gone.

Mrs May has to honour the will of the Scottish parliament, which the First Minister routinely ignores. Holyrood must have powers from Westminster it wants to give back to Brussels. Then there are the things that are just made up, such as the UK Government wanting to grab powers back.

BUT the everywoman of 2015 now seems to want to look imperial. The posed picture this week of her signing her letter to Mrs May was woeful. If it was supposed to give her equivalence to the Prime Minister, it only made her look like she was doing a Margaret Thatcher impersonation for Red Nose Day.

Despite her lifelong commitment to independence, I doubt she wants to call a referendum now any more than Mr Salmond did in the last parliament. With an overall majority he didn’t expect in 2011, he had no option but to call one. No one expected the UK to vote for Brexit, so Miss Sturgeon’s ‘material change’ clause can be claimed to have been triggered.

She now has few options other than to try to frustrate the whole Brexit process by refusing to pass the necessary legal motions at Holyrood.

Instead of persuading Scots to leave the Union, she may just anger the rest of the UK. Unauthorised referendums, early elections or en masse Westminster by-elections are far too risky to survive.

But the fact that the First Minister finds herself with so few, and such dismal, options, tells you her administration has lost its sureness of touch.

She is not appealing to the middle ground which would be vital in a referendum, only to her core vote. Worse, she is making a Tory Prime Minister ‘Scotland never voted for’ look more reasonable.

Miss Sturgeon may have the Thatcher suits and poses, but she has managed to put herself in a position where it is Mrs May who gives voice to the majority of Scots.

Caught in a cul-de-sac, the lady needs to find a way of turning.