Will the SNP's decade long dominance in Scottish politics come to an end?

ITV News' Peter Smith unpacks the SNP's manifesto as the party gear up for the General Election.

We've seen a decade of dominance for the SNP in Scottish politics, and if polls are to be believed - that may now be coming to an end.

That relentless red tide sweeping through the rest of the country has reached us north of the border and, for the first time since 2010, it is very possible that Labour will overtake the SNP as Scotland's biggest party at Westminster.

The SNP has publicly faced significant difficulties in the last year or so.

There is, of course, the ongoing police investigation into the SNP's funds and finances. The party also had to issue an apology after it distributed "misleading" and falsely inflated membership numbers.

Additionally, donations to the party have plummeted - unlike his predecessors, there are no helicopters or battle buses for John Swinney in this campaign.

Rebuilding trust with the voters will be crucial at a time when the general public is telling us they're a bit fed up with politicians giving false promises.

The SNP is under new leadership with John Swinney, who replaced Humza Yousaf in May. He was also on the job for less than a year after Nicola Sturgeon's sudden resignation.

That level of change and upheaval has caused disruption but in this election, the SNP are returning to a tried and tested offering; a vote for the SNP is a vote for Scottish independence.

That's page one, line one of their manifesto today.

In an interview with me today, John Swinney has promised that if the SNP gets a majority of seats in this election there will be an independence referendum in the next five years.

The detail on exactly how he will deliver that is not yet clear.

But it is important to understand why keeping the independence dream alive is of the utmost importance to the SNP.

Scotland is split almost exactly 50/50 on independence.

Polling shows support for independence is currently higher than support for the SNP - which is interesting, in itself, if independence supporters are moving away from the SNP as their party of choice.

It is crucial for the SNP to win back some of those people in order to beat Labour. To achieve this, John Swinney needs to convince people that he will succeed where Nicola Sturgeon failed in persuading the next UK government to grant Scotland another referendum.

That's going to be tricky when both the Conservatives and Labour have been clear, their answer will be a flat 'no'.

Another interesting aspect of this campaign in Scotland has been the absence of the 'Farage effect.'

While he is fighting to change the political landscape south of the border, Nigel Farage and his Reform Party are notably a non-event in Scotland.

Read into that what you will, but it strikes me as being similar to Boris Johnson and Brexit -neither of which were particularly popular in Scotland either.

Have you heard the latest Talking Politics? Every day in the run-up to the election Tom, Robert and Anushka dig into the biggest issues dominating the political agenda…