The SNP’s popularity is even higher now, at 62 per cent, than after the May “tsunami”, even though the Nationalists have been treading water recently as their lacklustre and self-satisfied conference agenda shows. Labour stand to lose all their constituency seats in the Scottish parliamentary elections next May.

If this isn’t a moment for a radical break with the past, I don’t know what is. When political extinction is staring you in the face, it’s no time for business as usual. Yet Labour have conducted their usual unimaginative, safety-first campaign with the front runner, Ms Dugdale, saying as little as possible and Mr Macintosh even less.
What radical ideas have we heard from Ms Dugdale? A House of Lords in Glasgow; good luck with that. A new pay deal for teachers, letting EU nationals vote in the referendum on Europe? Curiously tangential to the central issues in Scottish politics.

She…