English and Welsh colleagues expressed shock and genuine sympathy when the general election results north of the border turned into a long list of political obituaries. And in their concern could be discerned the shadow of panic. If it could happen in Scotland, why not in England?

The Scottish scenario is one that the new Ukip leader, Paul Nuttall, will be keen to reproduce. He will find it harder to accomplish than the rather exciteable media coverage since his election has suggested: Labour in the north is more resilient and better organised than people think, and Nuttall still doesn’t have anything like the media profile of Nigel Farage who, for all his media savvy, pint-drinking, fag-smoking approach to campaigning, still netted only a single seat at the 2015 general election.

But Labour MPs are nervous for a reason. Ten years ago, Scottish Labour regarded the SNP with the same resentment and fear. They directed their fire away from the Tories and towards Alex Salmond and his (then) tiny army of parliamentarians. And then look what happened.

Labour’s initial reaction to Nuttall’s election as leader does not fill one with confidence. It issued a video, hoping it would go viral (it did not) warning about the new Ukip leader’s past support for privatizing the NHS. But the NHS has never, in its history, won a general election for the party that created it. That Labour feels the need to retreat to its political comfort zone does not speak well of its confidence in the face of this threat.