WHAT sort of government is Scotland about to elect? Not what party, take note. Barring a Salmond-shaped asteroid or other sensational plot twist, we can reasonably expect the government still to be led by the SNP, either a majority or a chunky minority supported by the Scottish Greens.

No, the question is, what is the nature of the government we’re going to get? Keen, vigorous, inspiring? Full of fresh ideas and energy? At ease with itself, outward-looking, united?

I pose the question because recent events suggest it’ll be a lot closer to none of the above than all of the above.

By May this year, the SNP will have been in power an astonishing 14 years.

With the next parliament a five-year term, by its end the SNP will most likely have been in power for 19 years and be seeking an extension to 24.

You don’t have to go back far in UK politics to find a government of similar longevity. It is not a happy example.

When John Major won the 1992 general election, the Tories had already been in power for 13 years, yet he managed to secure the largest ever popular vote, thanks in large part to not being Margaret Thatcher or Neil Kinnock, and ditching the poll tax.

Five years later, Mr Major was a national joke, his collapsing government a byword for sleaze and infighting, and Tony Blair’s New Labour was a shoo-in.

In the end, the Major government needed to be put out of its misery and voters couldn’t wait to pull the trigger.

I wouldn’t want to draw too many parallels; so many scandals from that time were extreme. But those years do offer a study in what happens when a government exceeds its natural length and starts to topple in on itself at the country’s expense.

That the Scottish Government is tired is now self-evident. A lot is down to the ever-shifting stresses and challenges of the pandemic.

But there were signs before Covid arrived and signs in other business too.

Dissent is on the rise. Not what the SNP might like to portray as ‘healthy debate’, but mutinous anger - over flaky independence plans, transgender rights and women’s rights, and Ms Sturgeon herself, often in relation to the treatment of Alex Salmond.

As Iain Macwhirter discussed in these pages yesterday, the sacking of MP Joanna Cherry QC from the Westminster frontbench, despite her talents, involved all three sore points.

If Ms Sturgeon had been a newly minted First Minister, sacking a stirrer like Ms Cherry would have been seen as a mark of strength, of confidence. At this point in her premiership, however, it looks like weakness, like fear.

Ms Cherry is now offering to enlighten SNP members about the backstory. “I’m happy to speak to any branch about recent events,” she wrote on Twitter on Tuesday night.

“I’m getting a lot of requests & will get back to everyone eventually.”

Which sounds a lot like like a nascent leadership bid via Zoom.

There are no shortage of problems for Ms Sturgeon at Holyrood either.

The same day Ms Cherry was sacked, it emerged the Government’s vaccine programme had had its worst day so far, with fewer than 10,000 first doses delivered on Sunday.

Ms Sturgeon said it had “dipped a bit”. It was 58% down on the previous day. That’s a dip in the same way that Glencoe is a wrinkle. The figures have improved markedly since, but the brittle refusal to accept reality on Monday was another sign of weakness.

The day after that, I gawped again as Holyrood’s justice committee and justice secretary Humza Yousaf tied themselves in knots over the Scottish Government’s Hate Crimes Bill.

This would criminalise hateful talk and behaviour towards certain groups, but is under fire for unduly curbing freedom of speech. It’s a mess.

Introduced last April, but years in gestation, it is due to go to a final vote early next month. Yet MSPs are still struggling to reconcile the conflicting principles at its heart - limiting speech and protecting speech.

After Mr Yousaf said he hoped there could be a broad, catch-all clause to protect freedom of expression, the committee’s pained convener, Tory Adam Tomkins, pointed out the Bill had chiefly been criticised for vagueness and overbreadth. He suggested a broad, catch-all clause might add to that. But the catch-all clause remains the plan for now.

So we have a committee trying, at the eleventh hour, to devise a way to protect freedom of expression in one part of a Bill in case it is removed by another part of the same Bill.

Of course, if the Bill didn’t exist, we wouldn’t need protected from it.

Maybe the committee can come up with a magical form of words that keeps everyone happy, but you wouldn’t bet on it. No government that was thinking straight would prioritise such muddled legislation.

I suspect most voters can see the current administration is under a pall, worn-out and accident prone.

Perhaps they reflect it’s still far better than Boris Johnson and his shabby crew of bluffers and duffers.

But although a wave of new MSPs will undoubtedly inject fresh blood into the SNP at Holyrood, the malaise isn’t clearing up anytime soon.

Rising internal friction, agony over a referendum that never comes, policy splits turning malignant on social media, and a direct challenge to Ms Sturgeon’s leadership all lie ahead.

Still, at least it gives the SNP the chance to try out a new slogan for May.

Forget the usual stuff about ‘It’s time’ and ‘Forward’, tell it like it is.

‘If you think we’re knackered now, just wait till 2026.’

Out of charity, I’m not even going to charge them for the idea.