NOW is the winter of her discontent. Nicola Sturgeon needs no reminding that a week is a long time in politics. The First Minister has been through the wringer in recent days.
The thoroughly predictable, yet still shambolic, return of universities and student hotspots for Covid; growing heat from the Holyrood inquiry into the Alex Salmond affair; and to cap it all, the Margaret Ferrier abomination.
The first raises questions about her Government’s competence, the second its transparency, and the latter, perhaps, the SNP’s candidate vetting.
READ MORE: Alex Salmond affair: Nicola Sturgeon's government formally denies Holyrood inquiry 'obstruction'
But the “reckless, dangerous and completely indefensible” actions of the former SNP MP, as Ms Sturgeon called them, are ultimately down to Ms Ferrier.
They are not emblematic of a peculiar SNP mindset, or a product, like Donald Trump’s coronavirus, of slapdash, culpable leadership.
They are the actions of a lonely fool who will now pay a heavy price.
Nor would I grab a pitchfork and rush to damn Ms Sturgeon over the student stumbling and fumbling.
As I wrote here when the epidemic began, it will overwhelm governments of all political complexions. It is a monster in our midst, and we are not used to handling monsters.
The Scottish Government cannot take a bow for its response to the crisis, but nor should it hang its head.
It has generally acquitted itself well, acting quickly and diligently, and Ms Sturgeon has been a far superior communicator throughout than, say, Boris Johnson.
The First Minister has also conceded the fallibility of the state responses from the get go, rather than trumpet mythical testing numbers or tout far-fetched relief by Christmas like, say, Mr Johnson again.
But the Salmond inquiry is different - that is where the stink is rising.
It was set up more than 18 months ago to look at how the Government bungled a sexual misconduct probe into Mr Salmond in 2018, leaving taxpayers with a £512,000 bill for his legal costs when he exposed the exercise as deeply flawed and “tainted by apparent bias” in a judicial review.
When the Government’s doomed defence collapsed in January last year, Ms Sturgeon told MSPs any inquiry would get both Government and SNP internal correspondence about it.
She said it would “be able to request whatever material they want, and I undertake that we will provide whatever material they request”.
It hasn’t happened.
Instead, her officials and deputy John Swinney have repeatedly refused to release tranches of evidence to the inquiry and tried to block certain witnesses from giving testimony.
READ MORE: Alex Salmond affair: Nicola Sturgeon grilled over husband Peter Murrell's role at FMQs
They have cited “legal privilege” for material related to the judicial review despite waiving that same privilege for three recent judge-led inquiries.
There has been a defensive, de minimis approach, rather than an inventive, open effort to share.
Yet when Ruth Davidson asked at FMQs why Ms Sturgeon had gone back on her word, she denied it.
Material was only withheld for legal reasons, she said, as if that explained away the gulf between her words to parliament and the reality. It doesn’t.
When she made that promise of “whatever” the inquiry wanted, Ms Sturgeon had been a minister for almost 12 years. She is also a lawyer.
That legal issues might crop up in an inquiry about a court case was a no brainer. But, like many a politician before her, she made a dodgy promise to help her get out of a jam.
Now it’s got her into a new one. The lurch away from her original pledge is letting opposition parties chip away at her greatest asset, public trust.
That Tory MSPs are busily calling her a liar in and out of the chamber is a sign they intend to make trust a key part of the election 2021 campaign. They won’t convince Scots to trust Boris Johnson, but they might cause some to doubt Ms Sturgeon.
The inquiry has also put the SNP’s incestuous leadership arrangement in the spotlight, handing ammunition to internal critics who see Mr Salmond’s fate, including his later criminal trial and acquittal, as part of a high-level SNP/Government plot to ruin him.
Throughout her leadership of the SNP, there have been odd rumblings about Ms Sturgeon’s marriage to the party’s chief executive Peter Murrell creating an unhealthy concentration of power. Since the Salmond affair, concern about it has grown sharply.
Despite Ms Sturgeon’s “whatever” promise, her husband has been as forthcoming as her government.
His written evidence went down so badly with the inquiry that he was effectively asked to try again. In response, the SNP hired lawyers to push back on the inquiry’s questions.
When Ms Davidson asked if explosive WhatsApp messages appearing to show Mr Murrell urging police and prosecution action against Mr Salmond were genuine, the First Minister dodged and deflected.
It was “outrageous” that she was being asked to respond on behalf of someone else, she said. Some on social media also complained this was the casual sexism of asking a wife to account for her husband’s sins. She wasn’t.
She was simply being asked about her own state of knowledge.
If she didn’t know if the messages were genuine, she could have said so. Instead, she said the inquiry ought to quiz her husband. The question of authenticity was left hanging.
The idea that the two halves of Scotland’s most powerful political household wouldn’t have discussed matters of consequence to the party they’ve given their lives to seems improbable to say the least.
The WhatsApp messages, given they are avidly cited by Mr Salmond’s supporters as evidence of a plot against him at the top of that party, seem a not unreasonable topic.
The fight against coronavirus will always be uphill. And little can be done to anticipate the Margaret Ferriers of the world. But Ms Sturgeon could lessen the corrosive effects of the Salmond inquiry.
Full disclosure must be the goal. If some files are legally impossible to share - impossible, mind, not merely tricky - that is one thing. But she should strive for the transparency she promised Holyrood at the outset.
As for Mr Murrell’s role, it feels as if the duopoly’s days are numbered.
His inadequate response to the inquiry has already fuelled demands for Ms Sturgeon to direct her party’s top official to do his job properly.
If the personal is getting in the way of the professional, then something will have to give. The SNP needs Ms Sturgeon; Mr Murrell not so much.
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