UNTIL last week this election was one in which nothing seemed to be happening. All that changed with the horrors of Manchester. Such atrocities test the fabric of our democracy and civic culture and find some – though thankfully few – wanting.

Theresa May came out saying some of the right words. But the nearly 1,000 armed troops now on our streets, are a reflection of the huge police cuts made during her six-year stint as Home Secretary and glaring failures in intelligence and security. Things haven’t gone quite to Tory plan, with polls showing their lead slipping and one YouGov poll putting it as narrow as five per cent, which would translate to a Tory overall majority of a mere two seats.

The Tories have never winced at wrapping themselves in the union flag, claiming patriotism as their own and calling out opponents as reds under the beds or unBritish. They have a born-to-rule attitude and a hunger to win that means Tory McCarthyite smears will proliferate for the remainder of the campaign.

The election mood is difficult to gauge. The Tories believe they have the over-65s in the bag in England, similarly Labour with the young.

Many of us in Scotland like to emphasise how different we are from the rest of the UK, secure in our centre-left values; not pandering to Tory and Ukip populist and xenophobic sentiments. Yet we are not immune from the gathering storm clouds – from the anxieties that fed Brexit, to insecure economic times and worries about security here and abroad.

Before campaigning was called off following the Manchester attack, the SNP had yet to develop a clear, overarching strategic theme. After 10 years in office in Holyrood, the party are the incumbents and are having to adjust to this new political reality. This was the undertow of the BBC Scottish Leaders’ Debate which saw nurse Claire Austin challenge the First Minister on nurses’ pay. The incident had ripples beyond the Twitter storm of whether she did or didn’t use a foodbank. What was revealing was the First Minister having to face the realities of being responsible for public services defined by constraints and cuts and failing to adequately deal with the human costs of this.

In the UK, Jeremy Corbyn has tapped into feelings of anger, anxiety and powerlessness, particularly among younger voters. In Scotland, this mood has been opportunistically and brilliantly captured by Ruth Davidson – challenging the SNP with the incessant “We Said No. We Meant It” mantra.

Hers is a threadbare insurgency, bereft of policy and ideas. But the SNP need an opposition and with Labour in Scotland confused and divided, Davidson has stepped into the breach. She has got far with guile and a bit of populism.

Scotland is slowly changing its political mood. It isn’t yet turning against the SNP. But the days of the SNP carrying all before it – the age of the 56 and winning just a whisker under half the vote – are apparently no more. At its peak, the party had a deft political touch, but in the last year or so it has shown a growing inability to reach out and understand the non-SNP majority of voters in Scotland. This was writ large in the party’s local election campaign and response afterwards.

Theresa May has shown the limits of "lonely at the top" leadership. Her excruciating U-turn on social care four days after the Tory manifesto launch showed poor judgement and her weakness as a politician – unable to even admit that she was conducting a U-turn. May is restricted by her inflexibility, narrow knowledge beyond her Home Secretary brief, and small number of advisers who she listens to on key decisions.

Nicola Sturgeon has a much more agile political and campaigning instinct and has already won her own mandate. Yet, there are some similarities between the two leaders. Both are consummate micro-managers, rarely take risks or make radical moves, and listen to a small circle of voices.

Labour have made headway in this election but whether it is sustainable is questionable. For while Wales has come back into the party's fold, Scotland is a write-off. Corbyn’s Labour hasn’t been the shambles many expected. The Scottish party, for all Kezia Dugdale’s energy, seems reduced to a sideshow. The best that can be said is that it isn’t facing complete meltdown.

Until the start of last week we seemed to be heading towards a reluctant, unenthusiastic Tory landslide, on a reduced turnout. Now that seems a little less certain. The Tory campaign, leadership and manifesto have shown nerves and weaknesses, while Labour have made inroads into their lead, aided by both the Lib Dems and Ukip going backwards during the campaign.

Similarly, Scotland is in unusual mood. The era of the seemingly near-invisible SNP is over but they will remain our dominant party well into the future. Now, they face the prospect of a more popular, abrasive opposition from the Scottish Tories.

All around the world, politics and leaders are failing. Since the 2008 banking crash, we have faced a future of slow growth and what the US writer Ruchir Sharma calls "a post-miracle world" – where the easy promises of the 1990s and Noughties no longer convince.

The pursuit of greater economic growth is the way all mainstream politicians have framed their choices, thus avoiding the politics of choosing winners and losers. Growth has provided the allure of painless redistribution for Labour and proof of the dynamism of the British economy and its supposed flexibility for Tories. This is still the drive behind Theresa May’s vision of Brexit and the SNP’s independence – where more economic growth makes all the difficult spending choices supposedly much easier.

The politicians who are fighting this election, or maybe the one after this, will have to find a richer set of slogans than the ones we see today.

On Tuesday the SNP launch their delayed manifesto – a mere nine days before polling. They will claim to be the progressive party of Scotland and the real opposition to the Tories at Westminster and will pepper their manifesto with eye-catching measures on higher rate tax, inequality and the public good.

It will be a decent prospectus, but the Blair-Brown-Cameron way of doing politics – showing contempt for voters by treating them as children – is becoming increasingly wearisome. The appeal of Corbyn and the SNP at their best shows enough voters yearn for something different. Corbyn with all his limits has railed against the status quo, but cannot convince his own parliamentary party.

It is time Labour and SNP had the courage to completely break with the failed politics of Britain’s recent past. That would entail being honest about the bogus economic prospectus of the boom years and the pretence that we can have it all – good public spending with low personal taxes. We are entering much more unsure times and politicians need to start treating us as adults who can understand the hard choices the future entails.