TODAY’S General Election has been the most unpredictable for decades — and not just because it “snapped” into life, three years early.

Left-leaning Scots were initially aghast to see Theresa May assert herself as the “strong and stable” candidate with barely a murmur from a fawning, uncritical media. And although a few of us did predict that Jeremy Corbyn would confound the critics, most predicted a Tory landslide and everyone settled down for the ensuing Labour wipeout.

Strangely though – for an election based on staged press conferences, closed policy launches and One Show sofas – it was the party’s manifestos that brought the wheels off the cart.

Business as usual was immediately suspended by the Tories’ Dementia Tax. Pensioners were shocked to find themselves facing the same targeted attack as the poor and disabled and political rivals marvelled at the clumsiness of Theresa May’s unforced policy error which managed to antagonise the Tory voters most likely to turn out and vote.

The Tory manifesto debacle (and subsequent humiliating U-turn) was swiftly followed by something even more astonishing – a confident, left-wing and costed Labour manifesto, promising a living wage and re-nationalisation of the railways. Commentators, reluctant to let reality damage their carefully manicured tale of Tory triumph, dismissed it as a reheated version of the 2015 Labour manifesto.

But there was one big difference. The promises were being made by Jezza, not Ed.

Now, no one can deny the Labour party is still all over the place and many of today’s candidates are the same MPs that launched last year’s attempted leadership coup.

But voters believe that Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell would implement their radical policies if elected – they could never be quite sure about Ed Miliband or Labour’s reactionary and complacent old guard. Moreover, as this election campaign’s developed, Jeremy Corbyn has shown that years of venomous personal abuse haven’t destroyed his lightness of touch or sense of humour. Theresa May has demonstrated exactly the opposite.

She may win today’s General Election battle, but Theresa May has already lost the credibility war -- especially in Scotland. A YouGov poll for The Times suggests 31 per cent of voters would lean further towards independence if Theresa May returns to 10 Downing Street tonight — and that includes 15 per cent of former No voters.

If that’s right, the prospect of weak and woolly Theresa negotiating Brexit would be enough to take Scotland out of the UK second time around. And that might explain the focus on Kezia Dugdale’s integrity that’s become the unexpected finale of the Scottish election campaign. Nicola Sturgeon’s decision to mention her private post-Brexit vote chat with the Scottish Labour leader was strangely timed. Throughout several election campaigns the SNP leader has avoided personal slanging matches and tackled the policy not the politician. But in Tuesday night’s STV debate, Sturgeon claimed the Scottish Labour leader said she would back a second independence ballot in the wake of the Brexit vote – a claim Kezia Dugdale hotly denied. But yesterday’s First Ministers’ Questions increased the impression that Nicola Sturgeon was telling the truth. She robustly repeated her version of events while Kezia Dugdale tackled an entirely different issue.

But has Kezgate done the SNP any favours?

Writing in the Daily Record, former Labour MP Brian Wilson said constituents and world leaders would henceforth doubt that private conversations with the First Minister would remain private and Ruth Davidson called the SNP leader a clype -- prompting Nicola Sturgeon to clarify that Kezia Dugdale herself “outed” the conversation in a newspaper article earlier this year.

That Times article said: “Ms Dugdale reveals she held secret talks with Nicola Sturgeon after the Brexit vote, and pledged Scottish Labour support for Nationalist efforts to keep Scotland in the European single market.

“We talked at length about how horrified we were at the result of the referendum,” [Kezia Dugdale] says. “And I pledged at that point to do everything I could, with the powers I had, to support Scotland having as strong a relationship with the rest of Europe as possible.”

That doesn’t quite pledge support for a second indyref but it doesn’t rule it out either. Still – so what? It’s the kind of “he said – she said” stuff that turns many folk off politics – and might damage the wrong political rivals from an SNP perspective.

It’s the Scottish Conservatives and Lib Dems, not Labour who are challenging most marginal SNP seats. So you’d think the SNP would be hoping for a Corbyn bounce to split the Unionist vote and end Tory hopes of snatching 12 SNP seats.

Instead the Tories have had a field day at Kezia Dugdale’s expense. The party’s constitution spokesman Adam Tomkins said: “This is a bombshell revelation which holes Scottish Labour’s entire campaign below the waterline… [and] proves the only pro-UK vote at this election is for the Scottish Conservatives.”

Indeed, political opponents like Brian Wilson have been able to suggest that Nicola Sturgeon’s preferred outcome is not a Labour win and a progressive alliance at Westminster, but a Tory win which gives Theresa May a hard Brexit mandate and thus keeps independence supporters onside. Certainly the YouGov poll found Labour voters were the most likely to abandon the UK in a second referendum if Oor Theresa remains at the helm. But is the SNP leadership really angling for that outcome?

Believe that and you must also believe that Nicola Sturgeon is willing to sacrifice friends and prominent SNP MPs so the Tories can stay in power. Among those vulnerable to Tory challenge are her deputy and Westminster leader Angus Robertson and former leader Alex Salmond. Of course, their seats are safer in reality than on paper -- incumbency and personal profile will help both men confound the pollsters. But surely Nicola Sturgeon would not hatch a strategy that risks losing such seasoned and accomplished performers?

Rather than search for contorted logic, it seems a lot more likely that the Kezgate revelations arose because the First Minister simply lost the rag. After weeks of baiting by political opponents who’ve turned this General Election into a verdict on her administration at Holyrood, it’s possible an exasperated SNP leader suddenly decided she had heard enough about the dangers of #ScotRef from a political leader who planned to endorse it until something prompted a change of heart. Either way, two other General Election discoveries will probably prove more significant in the long run.

One is that independence looks set to have replaced class yet again as the main dividing line in Scottish politics. That means every election from now on will be a proxy for the independence vote, whether that’s fair or not and whether the SNP approaches the election that way or not. In for a penny, in for a Scottish pound – as long as independence is “on the table” the SNP must actively campaign for it. The second important truth likely to be delivered later tonight is that a radical, redistributive agenda like Jeremy Corbyn’s can be very attractive to voters. The SNP could usefully spend the summer developing big, bold, visionary ideas to avoid the managerial trap that will otherwise hobble them as it has crippled every Westminster Government.

It’s almost certain the SNP will win the Scottish election and thus a triple lock on the case for a second independence referendum – and that’s a big achievement. But to make the most of the next and imminent Brexit challenge, Scots need fewer technical rammies – tempting as it is for the SNP to play Unionists at their own tricks -- and far more confident and inspiring visions of Scotland’s future beyond the UK.