SNP conference: Can John Swinney unite fractured party?

Privately – and in some cases publicly – senior Scottish government figures are very downbeat.

The scale of the challenge to balance this year’s budget will, they say, mean painful choices.

And there’ll be no let up for 2025/26, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer warning “things will get worse before they get better”.

Tough financial decisions at Westminster of course have a knock-on effect for Scotland’s grant funding.

Meanwhile, the issues that divided the SNP prior to the election are well-rehearsed – they include the pursuit of gender recognition legislation and its strategy over independence.

A sense of dissatisfaction with the leadership, seen by some as closed off and unwilling to listen to the wider membership, also bred resentment for years.

More recently the implosion of the power sharing deal with the Greens and the subsequent resignation of Humza Yousaf created a sense of instability.

And since the election, the decision for the Constitution Secretary Angus Robertson to meet with Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UK caused an internal backlash.

And that is the backdrop to which John Swinney will address the SNP conference for the first time as first minister.

He has two main challenges – the first is to try to unite and motivate the membership.

The second is to lay out a new vision for government.

Neither of those are going to be easy.