It is difficult to see how Nicola Sturgeon and her SNP government can claim any kind of victory after one of its flagship policies, the Named Person scheme, was soundly trashed by five judges sitting on the Supreme Court. This though, is a party whose language of spin (also its mother tongue) is a Caledonian version of Orwellian double-speak. And when that fails sufficiently to enthral the masses they fall back on the trusty standard: it’s all Westminster’s fault: this from a government which has been in unbroken power in Scotland for more than nine years.

When five UK judges, including two Scottish ones, use the phrase “totalitarian regime” when framing their problems with the Named Person proposals you know you’re in trouble and that no amount of spin by your army of super-annuated advisors will alter that fact. Their Lordships and Baroness were bound to point out the principle or aims of the Named Persons policy were unquestionably "legitimate and benign". This is a view shared by most of its critics. Back in February 2014 I described it thus: “The move is part of the SNP’s otherwise sound and thoughtful Children and Young People Bill which also guarantees free school meals for children in primary one to three and a significant increase in nursery provision.”

What is not open to question here is the big heart of a party which has sought, at all times, to alleviate the daily burdens being shouldered by many who have been left behind by this fast and unforgiving world. But, dear God in heaven, this party’s arrogance will be its undoing. And if it doesn’t alter its high-handed and dismissive attitude to those of us who share its ultimate dream but who choose to criticise the party occasionally, it will be the undoing of independence even as Theresa May is making such a good job of making the case for it.

When I first voiced my concerns about this I didn’t remotely imagine that, for the next two and a half years it would sail on regardless of what the SNP knew to be defective about the scheme. They must have known key parts of it that permitted assorted public bodies to share information about children without the consent of their parents would risk taking it outside the spirit and the essence of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Scottish Government had 30 months to retreat a few paces from its proposal, refine it and re-present it. What stopped them from considering the possibility of asking parents to opt-in to the scheme after it had been properly and fully explained to them?

This, though, is the SNP at Holyrood we’re talking about. In their world not only is any problem not to be admitted but all opposing forces are to be ridiculed and abused. Thus any groups opposing Named Person on the reasonable and understandable grounds it permitted the state to interfere in family life were howled down and accused of pandering to paedophiles and putting children’s lives in danger.

Christian groups were jeered and intimidated in a manner that raised some questions about some of the influences that hold sway in this party. It was a wretched, wretched response. Many of these people would have previously been well-disposed to the idea of Scottish independence. Bang goes another tranche of potential supporters.

And when a good and decent man like John Swinney feels compelled to try to make political capital from the unbearably tragic murder of little Liam Fee you knew the Rubicon had been crossed. What was Mr Swinney thinking about?

The Unionist and right wing press, of course, have piled in on this one and are dancing all the way up the High Street. But what else did the Nationalists expect? This isn’t a game we’re playing here. Only one thing is worse than the thought of Adam Tomkins, Ruth Davidson and the editor of the Scottish Daily Mail breaking out the bubbly tonight and shouting “three cheers for the SNP”. And that’s the thought that they were shooting at an open goal; that they had been gifted this one and might just as well have purchased a case of Madame Lily Bollinger’s finest themselves and sent it, recorded delivery, to the paper’s Glasgow headquarters.

Of course, we’ve been here before with the SNP. This is a party which proclaims to be redder than Jeremy Corbyn’s braces and to be the social conscience of UK politics, holding everyone’s feet to the fire, as they are fond of saying, over fairness and inequality. Yet, there is a curiously illiberal and reactionary strain running through its core which seems to belie its Socialist credentials.

In the run-up to the independence referendum, they cravenly caved in to the scarecrow element in Scottish society by refusing to allow prisoners to participate in this great event. Scotland has high rates of re-offending and encouraging offenders to be part of the great debate could have been a civilising influence. Yet, even though they knew in their hearts this was the right thing to do, they lost their nerve.

This party had to be dragged by the heels by Women for Independence to scrap plans for a new women’s prison, the only humane option for a country that has one of the highest female prisoner populations per capita in Europe.

Instead of addressing the deeply embedded social deprivation that leads to problem drinking in our under-privileged communities the SNP sought instead to pursue a stupid "blame it on the Buckie" policy of minimum alcohol pricing. In this they were encouraged by a bunch of indolent academics who wouldn’t have known what a bottle of the Coatbridge Commotion Lotion would have looked like even if he were to be chibbed by one.

Under this administration, Police Scotland has been allowed to run amok: snooping on journalists; stopping and searching innocent citizens; lying in court to secure convictions under the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act and failing to explain, more than a year after the event, why a young man died in their custody.

Consider again, Mr Swinney and Ms Sturgeon, the words of the Supreme Court judges on your deeply flawed Named Persons legislation. “The first thing that a totalitarian regime tries to do is get at the children, to distance them from the subversive, varied influences of their families, and indoctrinate them in their rulers’ views of the world.” Step back, take a deep breath and think of the bigger picture here.

And before some of the SNP’s more avid enthusiasts start hurling their imprecations and abjurations about "SNP Bad", they ought to consider this question: Is their blind devotion to this very mortal and flawed party risking that which they have worked for and dreamt about every day of their adult existence?