Confounding her critics is easy for FM but that’s not the difficult bit

If Nicola Sturgeon bagged a fiver every time critics have suggested her time is up, she would be richer than Michelle Mone (and also, an added bonus, be able to sleep at night).

According to her opponents, the first minister’s coat peg has been getting shooglier every single day since she moved her books into Bute House.

From inept handling of harassment claims against Alex Salmond and incompetent management of public services to her grassroots being in revolt and MPS in despair, anything and everything has been used to justify predictions of her imminent political demise.

Well, she’s still here as the feverish speculators – mostly, but by no means all, unionists – get bamboozled by a combination of wishful thinking and the echo chamber that passes for debate in Scotland where the only audible opinions are those that sound like your own.

The clamour rose again last week after Stephen Flynn became leader of the SNP at Westminster. This would, it was solemnly averred, be the death knell for Sturgeon as first minister. The disciplined party she ruled with an iron fist in an iron glove had become a rabble overnight and the FM had better be nimble to avoid the tumbrils.

The insistence that this was definitely it came with the usual reminder that Sturgeon has already spoken publicly about life after Holyrood and the stuff about how she has been mailshotting her CV to the UN.

And then, the very next day, came a poll suggesting Yes is at 56% and, if the next General Election is really fought as a de facto referendum (whatever that is), the SNP would win it. It’s only one poll with all the usual caveats but, still, it doesn’t really suggest the independence cause and its leader are political dodos.

Unlike a stopped clock, the claim that Sturgeon does not have long left in power has never been right but will have to be correct one day and certainly the first minister has, in recent, less guarded moments, looked like a leader who could see the whole thing far enough.

Certainly, if she really runs the next election as a sort-of indyref and loses, she will, if she hangs about, need to explain why she volunteered such a gift to the unionist parties, who will happily ignore the result if it doesn’t suit them – unless far more Scots get exercised about a referendum than seem to be at the moment – but claim it is the end of nationalism if it does.

Meanwhile, Labour are, after a series of false starts, making headway, with leaders on both sides of the border combining understated ambition, realism, competence and confidence.

If SNP candidates really intend to hit the hustings to tell undecided voters that this Labour party is every bit as bad as the Tories, they will risk being laughed at. Unless more Scots start caring about a referendum, however, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer will play the long game, hoping to curb support for independence by starting to rewire the UK.

Then, one way or another, a clear majority of us will need to make peace with the need for a referendum or the opportunity for a new Britain.