Unionists must love this kind of talk. Up there with poor people voting Tory, and EU-funded regions voting Brexit.
Maybe the problem is the 'reward bad behaviour analogy'. A general election is not training a dog, or keeping a bunch of schoolkids in line. It's a twice a decade verdict on London rule, where only a mass voice against is even heard as such.
I think there's a case for using Holyrood elections to express party preferences on independence, but for the GE, any slump in the SNP will be taken as a unionist resurgence in Scotland