Analysis: Has political gravity finally caught up with the SNP?

That was at the height of the drama around the police investigation into party finances which continues to dog the party and its reputation.

But if that felt terminal, the last week for Humza Yousaf must surely have felt apocalyptic.

With his mind understandably with family in Gaza, the tides of Scottish politics are likely to be the bottom of his priority list.

And yet as we enter the SNP conference, there is a palpable sense of crisis, of a party drowning under the weight of self-inflicted injury, being dragged down by the Labour behemoth about to stamp all over British politics as the country turns against the Conservatives at a general election.

For years, the SNP felt protected from political gravity, appearing to operate in a steady orbit at the top of Scottish politics while others had differing levels of success getting rockets off the ground.

But in Savanta’s latest poll for The Scotsman, that irrepressible force of nature appears to have taken hold.

SNP voters clearly understand the self-evident prospect of a Labour government after the next general election, something they desire and have been told to push for by the SNP since 2010.