To say the SNP campaign launch was a hastily-arranged event would be an understatement.

Journalists were scrambling into the venue, a hotel in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket, while SNP press officers buzzed around like frantic bees, rushing past us with yellow signs and a yellow lectern bearing the words “Put Scotland First,” just minutes before the event was due to start.

When it did, the party leader John Swinney talked about the difficulties of adequately funding the NHS and tackling the cost of living crisis, when the UK economic system, particularly after Brexit, was, in his words, “broken.”

It was clear Swinney was putting independence at the heart of his campaign. Perhaps that was because polls suggest support for the idea is relatively stable, and relatively high, while support for the SNP has slumped sharply in recent months.

That may have been his intention but many of the questions were about the first minister’s support for his former health secretary Michael Matheson, who resigned in February over an expenses scandal.

It neatly highlighted one of the central challenges for the SNP at this election — in a general election it can be tricky being in government and in opposition at the same time.