Most of the election pitches the SNP are trying out are hopeless - the exception is "only the SNP can beat the Tories in Scotland", but that will need a lot more work

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Stewart McDonald is the SNP MP for Glasgow South. Whether fairly or unfairly, he's often derided as the epitome of a Westminster careerist who wants to kick independence into the long grass so he can enjoy a few decades in the London parliament.  That makes the current situation bitterly ironic, because it's probable that burying independence is about to cost McDonald his seat and thus his career.  In 2017, when the SNP's national lead over Labour was around ten points, he held on in Glasgow South by just four and a half points.  If we assume the latest poll showing national parity between the SNP and Labour is broadly correct, he's on course to lose.

Which makes it fascinating that even as he stares down the barrel in this way, he's doubling down on his belief that the SNP win elections by putting independence on the backburner.  Perhaps he feels that what has worked three times can work a fourth time, even in more difficult circumstances, if you just "do it harder" as our dear old gun nut friend Kevin Baker used to say.  But the problem is that the circumstances are not just different, they're totally transformed, and the Scottish people are looking at Labour in a way that they haven't for years.  It's therefore difficult to know whether to laugh or cry when McDonald earnestly writes today about how the SNP can win by promoting high-minded objectives such as tackling "the crumbling of the post-war architecture of global governance".  Good luck getting a hearing for that as a third party standing in only 8% of the UK's seats when all the media will be interested in is the Labour v Tory horserace for Downing Street.  The sad reality is that if you want to be a Scottish political careerist in the current context you probably need to be a candidate for a Brit party, and that party needs to be called Labour.

No, the SNP's best hope was to challenge the prism of the Labour v Tory horserace by making the election about something else altogether, at least in the minds of independence supporters, in other words by making it a de facto referendum on independence.  Having turned their back on that idea, they seem to be frantically casting around for alternative pitches, almost all of which are hopeless.  The one that does have some promise, though, is the line about "only the SNP can deliver a Tory-free Scotland", because there is actually some truth to that claim and it can be demonstrated to voters, albeit with some difficulty because it's a complicated point.

As I've noted many times, the fact that "vote Labour on Thursday to get the Tories out on Friday" is not really an honest claim does not make it any the less compelling to voters, because it intuitively sounds correct and the simplicity of it is almost irresistible.  But if you have the means of challenging it, you've got to at least try, and the SNP do have the advantage that they are clearly the main challengers in all six constituencies held by the Scottish Tories...

Dumfries and Galloway:

Conservatives 44.1%

SNP 40.6%

Labour 9.2%

Moray:

Conservatives 45.3%

SNP 44.2%

Labour 5.0%

West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine:

Conservatives 42.7%

SNP 41.1%

Liberal Democrats 11.7%

Labour 4.6%

Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk:

Conservatives 48.4%

SNP 38.8%

Liberal Democrats 8.1%

Labour 4.7%

Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale:

Conservatives 46.0%

SNP 38.3%

Labour 8.5%

Banff and Buchan:

Conservatives 50.1%

SNP 40.4%

Liberal Democrats 5.4%

Labour 4.1%

Those numbers make a powerful case all by themselves, because people can see that even if there is a truly enormous swing from SNP to Labour in those seats, at most all that will be achieved is the replacement of the SNP as the second-placed party with Labour - it won't dislodge the Tories.  Doubtless these numbers will be appearing in leaflet bar charts in the constituencies themselves to encourage Labour-inclined voters to vote tactically for the SNP, but I actually think - as unconventional as it might seem - that the SNP need to get the numbers out nationally in an advertising campaign. The notion that "only the SNP can beat the Tories in Scotland" is too counterintuitive to really stick unless you provide a visual representation of the underlying logic, and you probably need to bash voters over the head with it again and again and again.

I know you might think "this is completely irrelevant outside those six seats", but remember that a lot of voters don't do detail, and if you can convince them that the SNP are the threat to the Tories in Scotland, they may well start to think that applies across the country.

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