MY daughter’s seventh birthday is coming up next week. It will be the second year in a row that we haven’t been able to throw her a proper party.

I explained that to her well in advance, of course. She knows we can’t have a big bash with all her friends and family. I got the disappointment out of the way nice and early so when the day comes she knows what to expect.

She doesn’t know that I’m planning other ways to make it special. She doesn’t know that I have decided on an elaborate enchanted woodland theme and that hidden in the shoe cupboard are binbags full of painted vines, leaves and flowers that I have been secretly making and stashing away.

She is unaware I am planning to demonstrate my love for her by dyeing my hair pink and squeezing my squishy lockdown body into a glittering fishtail gown to transform myself into a mermaid. She will be dressed as a unicorn. I’ve convinced her dad to wear dragon wings for the occasion and he has (reluctantly) agreed to let me cover his baldy head in decorative glitter.

She doesn’t know that her auntie has been tasked with creating hand-painted toadstools and colourful pumpkin fairy houses. She doesn’t know the reason my upstairs neighbour and I keep having secret phone conversations is because my neighbour is turning old vegetable boxes into a magical flower display that will decorate the communal close on my daughter’s special day.

So when her birthday comes I will have under-promised and over-delivered. She is expecting a cake and some presents with me and her dad. What she will actually get is an immersive magical experience with Mum Mermaid and Daddy Dragon-Heid. There’s a lesson in there for the SNP. Yesterday’s Panelbase poll for the Sunday Times suggested that support for both the SNP and independence have fallen. The party are at their lowest level of support since the 2019 General Election and – based on this poll – look unlikely to be heading for a majority in the Holyrood elections.

In his analysis, Professor John Curtice said these results are about more than just the fallout from Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon giving evidence to the Holyrood committee.

“The challenge facing the SNP may go beyond the events of the last fortnight,” he said. “There are signs that as the election approaches, some of the softer support for the party and for independence has slipped away.”

Polls are snapshots, not predictions. This election will be like no other and we don’t yet know whether a predominantly online campaign will work in the SNP’s favour or not. Given the tumultuous events of the last few weeks, only the vastly over-confident among us would try their hand at telling the future.

Leaving that aside, the SNP should have never have allowed the notion that they are certain to win a majority go unchecked. During every TV and radio appearance and in every newspaper interview SNP representatives should have been at pains to manage expectations. They should have talked down the prospect and stressed that they were in it to win it – but winning it with a majority would be a remarkable feat.

Why? For two reasons. The first: we don’t yet know how the pandemic will affect turnout. If an SNP majority looks like a done deal those who would be minded to vote for them might decide to stay at home or not register for a postal vote.

And the second is the most important for all those who support independence. The party’s fortunes – like it or not – are inextricably linked to support for a second referendum and how that is framed in the media.

During The Andrew Marr Show’s paper review yesterday morning, the BBC’s Scotland editor, Sarah Smith, was discussing the results of the Sunday Times poll.

“The polls today suggest that the SNP might just squeak a win with a majority of one seat,” she said. “Is that going to be enough to really allow them to press on for a second referendum on independence?”

Some might be irritated by Sarah Smith failing to point out that the Holyrood system of voting was designed specifically to avoid one party gaining an overall majority. But the fact is – the SNP haven’t been doing that either.

They have allowed this inference to be drawn. That a majority of one seat in a system designed to prevent it is “squeaking” through when we know it is not. For whatever reason: be it over-confidence or incompetence, the SNP have failed to manage expectations.

A pro-independence majority in the Holyrood election would be a mandate for a second independence referendum. If the SNP don’t start – loudly – making the case for that now then they might come to regret it when the votes have been counted.