INDEPENDENCE seems further away than ever, observed Professor Adam Tomkins, the academic and adviser to Better Together, reflecting on the events of last year and, no doubt, breathing a small sigh of relief.

Blogging on the final stages of the referendum campaign, and what has happened since, he described how his private despair at the prospect of a Yes vote - he said he endured "the worst fortnight of my political life" this time last year - has been replaced by a guarded sense of optimism about the future of the UK.

Why should that be, he pondered, given the apparently unstoppable rise of the SNP? His answer was simple: "This is peak SNP".

"With 56 MPs and perhaps as many as 70 MSPs (after next May's Holyrood election) this is as good as it can ever get for them. And after you’ve reached your peak, the only way is down," he wrote.

Despite the party's strength, the canny SNP leadership will not rush into a second independence referendum it could not afford to lose. And lose it would, argued Prof Tomkins, not least because of the damage done to its economic case by the collapse of oil prices. There will be no second referendum until Scots can be persuaded to join the euro and, long before that happens, the SNP will be undone by its poor record in government, he added.

By 2021, the SNP will have been in government for 14 years and unable to escape the blame for glaring failings in health and education.

Holyrood's new tax and welfare powers (which Prof Tomkins helped devise as part of the Conservative's Smith Commission team)

will force Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney to take some difficult and unpopular decisions.

"All bubbles burst. All tides recede. Eventually," he concluded.

Well, they do. But I'm not sure that is the SNP's inevitable or even likely fate by 2021.

Assuming Ms Sturgeon can kick a second referendum into the long-ish grass while keeping her party happy at the same time, she will have a golden opportunity to consolidate or build on the SNP's unprecedented levels of support.

If, as the polls indicate, the SNP extends its Holyrood majority next May, Ms Sturgeon will finding herself in a position to create a bold, reforming administration the like of which the Scottish Parliament has not yet seen.

Up to now, the Nationalists have been cautious in government. They would never acknowledge it, but the referendum acted as a brake on reform. For two years up to the vote, the energies of senior ministers and much of the machinery of government were expended building and presenting the case for independence. Indeed, from the moment the SNP scraped into power in 2007, its approach was determined by its desire to hold a referendum. That meant building support and that, in turn, meant side-stepping difficult, damaging political battles. With a few notable exceptions, Alex Salmond's first administration went out of its way to avoid challenging vested interests or rocking boats too much. It shied away from the wide-ranging health reforms proposed by Labour in 2007, for example, and, having failed to bring in a local income tax, simply settled for freezing people's council tax bills.

The situation is different now. Squeezed budgets have made reform all the more urgent. And, if Ms Sturgeon is eyeing a second referendum in the medium to long term, she has far more to gain by taking on the challenges, risks and all, than by playing it safe.

The frightening thing from her opponents' point of view is that she understands all this and appears to have a much greater appetite than her predecessor for the day-to-day, nuts and bolts business of running the country.

This week she outlined plans for national testing in primary schools, a move she believes will provide data necessary to drive improvements. To do it, she is willing to countenance an unwanted by-product - primary school league tables - that is set to provoke an angry backlash from teachers. Across government other work is underway to reset health targets and, finally, to reform local government finance. These are difficult problems. But if she succeeds, if improvements are felt, Ms Sturgeon will march towards a second referendum with her reputation enhanced. Her opponents might find they have little to say apart from: "It should have happened years ago."

All bubbles burst, it's true, but I don't think Holyrood's opposition parties should assume we've reached "peak SNP".