Can a new leader persuade Nationalist activists to keep waiting, and waiting? Or will they be bounced into a kamikaze bid for separation?
For whatever reason, he may be morphing into the politician I hoped he would become – the moderate man whose patience is exhausted.
Regan argues that if her party won more than 50 per cent of the vote in an election that would be a mandate, as “Westminster isn’t going to agree a referendum any time soon.”
Much as with Lee Anderson and the death penalty, her candidacy puts the spotlight again on the question of major strands of public opinion which are deeply under-represented in public life.
Basic services – the NHS, policing, schools, road maintenance, refuse collection, you name it – have gone to rack and ruin. Life expectancy has fallen sharply. We still have, to our shame, by far the worst drug death levels in Europe.
Scottish Conservatives have attracted unionist voters who might not stick with them if the threat of independence were seen to recede.
The First Minister has a powerful gift for weaving myths about herself, but should not be allowed to write the first draft of history alone.
“I know it might seem sudden, but I have been wrestling with it for weeks”, says the outgoing First Minister and SNP leader.
A litany of domestic failures and the murky state of SNP finances are all possible factors. But his shattering the illusion that the Tories could not win a constitutional fight seems to have tipped the balance.
Rename the whole project to reflect its truly unifying nature and let more of Britain, Scotland and Northern England be connected by the “steel threads”.
More integration between police forces and elected representatives would help fix the broken community reporting system that leaves victims feeling helpless and isolated.
Time and again, their more muscular – to borrow a phrase – approach to Westminster’s prerogatives has paid off. Yet they don’t set Union policy.
The Scottish Secretary, understated in his public utterances, “often makes the wittiest interjections in Cabinet discussions”.
A bolder government would not win every battle it fought, but it would win more than one that never gave battle at all.
The end of the iron discipline which made any criticism of the leadership unthinkable has exposed the deep divisions within the party and kicked off its vicious civil war.