Alarms will have been going off in Political Party Headquarters north and south of the border this past weekend as by-election results and local authority problems cast the future of both of our current governing parties into turmoil.

For the Tories, the latest two defeats in by elections in Kingswood and Wellingborough throw further doubt on Rishi Sunak’s ability to turn around their struggling ship.

While with a general election just around the corner, the SNP must be aware of the growing threat that a rejuvenated Labour Party poses to their increasingly discredited reign in Scotland.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Friday morning after the Labour by-election results. Dan Kitwood/PA Wire.

Tories risk losing more votes if they decide to cling to power for as long as po...

The common theme for both to tackle is that change appears to be coming and neither looks like being on the right side of the outcome.

I am aware that some readers will be thinking: “Well you would say that wouldn’t you?” but what has surprised me is the strength of feeling the public, that enough is enough.

For 16 years now the SNP has told us that the council tax was not fit for purpose and then that they would freeze it while they came up with its replacement.

Unfortunately, time has run out for that particular argument as councils up and down Scotland are this week turning over every financial stone and looking down the back of every proverbial sofa to try to unearth the cash to preserve local services and avoid cuts.

Ask any of them, and all but the most ardent and loyal SNP councillor will point to the SNP Government’s shameful and repeated tightening of the purse strings on them over nearly two decades.

In Edinburgh our councillors are burning the midnight oil to try to fill a funding gap that, most annoyingly of all, could be instantly plugged if the Scottish Government used the most recent extra funding announced by the UK Government to do so.

Emergency funding for English councils is expected to result in £45 million of extra cash for Scotland which could go a long way to solving our various councils’ problems.

But so far nothing. They must be hoping to avoid any more by-election tests like Rutherglen to reveal the extent of public disillusionment.

For the Tories the threat to their hold on power becomes clearer every time the public is asked.

They now have a net loss of eight seats in this parliament, the highest since the period immediately before Tony Blair’s election victory.

The economy is now officially in recession and opinion polls are predicting a defeat of historic proportions for the world’s oldest continuous political party.

The internal divisions and renewed questions over anti-semitism in the Labour oppositions cannot be much of a consolation to a struggling Government.

There are, of course plenty of recent examples of opinion polls getting general election predictions being complete clangers, not least in 2017 when a hung parliament transpired form the prediction of a landslide for Theresa May.

The voting public’s right to change their minds must always be respected, so to predict how they will vote would be rash.

But there must be awareness that those alarms could be sounding the end of the game for both administrations.

The alarm bells are going off in party HQs both north and south of the border - Christine Jardine