NICOLA Sturgeon attached a brave coda to the speech in which she ruefully bumped her plan for a second referendum down the road past Brexit. As MSPs digested the first part of her statement on Tuesday, she hit them with this: “Any government, after ten years, needs to take stock. So over this summer… we will set out afresh our vision for the country we lead, together with creative, imaginative, bold and radical policies.”

Politicians being what they are, this was immediately read as code for a reshuffle. Deputy Tory leader Jackson Carlaw even went on Radio Scotland the next morning to predict a “brutal” bloodletting was nigh. It quickly turned out to be nonsense.

For one thing, there wasn’t enough time before summer recess to have a reshuffle and confirm new ministers. For another, the current line-up is barely a year old, less if you include Michael Russell’s return as Brexit minister in August. It might raise questions about the First Minister’s judgment if she started replacing her own choices so soon. But it was also an understandable leap by Mr Carlaw. How do you refresh a government in its 11th year if not with a reshuffle? Come to think of it, can you refresh one that old at all?

As we saw with Prime Minister Gordon Brown, mature governments often run out of gas. This is completely natural. Governments splurge their best ideas in the first term because they might not get a second. If they do, continuity and ‘seeing the job through’ become their mottoes. But after that things tend to go downhill and holding on to power comes ahead of innovation. They can become risk averse, fearful it won’t take much for the public to turn away and follow the opposition piping ‘time for a change’. Or they can turn kleptomaniac, looting ideas from their rivals to blunt their appeal.

There is little doubt the current SNP Government is getting tired. Literally. From Ms Sturgeon down, its leading lights look knackered after the election campaign and bruised by the result. It showed there is no such thing as a safe SNP seat at Westminster, and MSPs are now contemplating their prospects in 2021. The combination of exhaustion and jangling nerves has produced a sour and jaded atmosphere at Holyrood.

Standards have dropped. Some of the answers in the chamber from the First Minister and her colleagues have been shocking. Take the row over botched EU farm payments. Asked directly three times, yes or no, if her government had asked Europe for more time to hit last night’s deadline the First Minister hid the truth. The nearest she came to it was saying: “We will continue to discuss with the European Commission any contingency arrangements that we consider are required.” It later transpired that, yes, her government had asked for an extension until mid-October just the day before. But it took the press to find that out. You’d never have known the specifics from her opaque brush-off to parliament.

Ms Sturgeon’s spokesman later said the row over her secrecy was “concocted”. It wasn’t. The government was at it, and everyone saw it plain as day. But this cynical Trump-lite trash is becoming the norm. It is another sign of tiredness and self-doubt.

So where does Ms Sturgeon find those “bold and radical policies” to turn things round? Well, I don’t suppose she shortchanged Scots for a decade by locking her best stuff in a safe. If she wants fresh thinking, she needs to bring in fresh talent. The brightest MSPs of the 2016 intake, such as Kate Forbes and Gail Ross, are already seen as ministers in waiting. It would make sense to promote them in a limited autumn reshuffle. Mr Russell and social security minister Jeane Freeman could be raised to cabinet. Angela Constance wouldn’t be missed.

Outside the fold, former health secretary Alex Neil is brewing up ideas to boost the economy. He reckons councils could raise hundreds of millions by borrowing against their housing stock, then invest in building new homes and repairing old ones, reviving the construction sector in the process. He also advocates “crash training” for thousands of people to fill key skills gaps, such as IT and the haulage industry. The unabashed economy-first strategy would help keep recession at bay, he says, and if it made voters happy and better disposed towards the SNP and independence, that wouldn’t exactly hurt.

The government is tired, but it’s not out yet. It won’t be easy, but Ms Sturgeon could get her pace back. First, however, she has to wake up to the problems of an administration that seems to be drifting towards its last bunker and resting place. Bold and radical action is needed far more than Tuesday’s brave words.