You can't change more of the same.

Swinney is an unlikely standard bearer for change.

There are no new ideas in politics.

Obama’s Yes We Can was recycled from Cesar Chavez. Trump’s Make America Great Again was stolen from Reagan. Corbyn’s For The Many Not The Few was taken from Tony Blair. Nicola Sturgeon found herself aping Thatcher as she tried to own aspiration.

The precise circumstances change but in a democracy the same things happen over and over again. An opposition party finally learns how to reach the voters that they lost. People get tired of a tired government. A party coming to the end of its time in office tries to squeeze one last mandate out of the people. Governments paint challengers as a risk. Challengers portray themselves as the long-awaited change.

Round and round it goes.

I mention all this because our new First Minister seems to believe he can break the wheel.

Today Savanta became the latest pollster to record a crossover point: Labour has overtaken the SNP in both Westminster and Holyrood.

Going by the playbook John Swinney’s strategy should be to paint an insurgent Labour as a risk to everything his administration has achieved. That is what long-time incumbents who are behind in the polls do. Parties seeking a fourth or fifth term, as Swinney now does, tend to use a “don’t risk it” message.

After a year of constant crisis, with three different SNP leaders, it is hard for Swinney to portray Labour as the risk of chaos. So instead of following a traditional incumbency model, he is painting himself as a change. It is a wildly misjudged strategy.

Swinney is a retread. He is a figure of the past. Here he is in his own words a year ago:

“The party needs some space to allow fresh thinking and fresh talent to come to the surface. I’ve had a superb and very, very privileged opportunity to be at the heart of the party’s decision making for the best part of the last forty years and I think its important the somebody else takes the party forward.”

Of course, an existing public image and a record of experience can be strengths for incumbents. People know who you are and you have a record to stand on. That is only an advantage if your public persona is helpful and your record is one to be proud of.

Swinney’s image has been as the right-hand man to two SNP First Ministers subsequently discredited by scandal. His experience is as a Minister responsible for some of the worst failures of the SNP government: marking down poor kids’ exam results; failing to close the attainment gap; presenting budgets that raised taxes, cut services and failed to grow the economy; signing off on the infamous ferry contract.

Swinney knows with his deep connection to the Salmond and Sturgeon years and his record of failure that the label of continuity will be hung around his neck. So he rose at First Minister’s Questions to present himself as a fresh start. The laughter from all around, and his only inability to keep a straight face, tells the story.

But just listen to what comes next. He pretends to offer something new in one breath and talks about two decades of SNP rule in the next.

Outside of a wine cellar, it is hard to argue that something that has been around for twenty years is fresh.

It isn’t just that John Swinney isn’t personally equipped to offer change, the SNP as a party no longer represent change. That’s why, with one exception, John Swinney’s cabinet is identical to Humza Yousaf’s. No new faces and no new ideas.

The old idea the SNP represented - lowering one flag and replacing it with another - is no longer on offer. John Swinney has abolished the role of a Minister for Independence. The same poll that has Labour take the lead also sees the nationalist majority in the Scottish Parliament disappear.

At heart, John Swinney is a small c conservative. The cause he has devoted more time to than any other is that of making Scotland a corporate tax haven. His first act as First Minister was to make a social and economic conservative his Deputy.

Unable to paint his opponent as a risk, unable to stand proudly on his record, and unable to offer change, the ‘new’ SNP leader may be left with nowhere to go.