Alex Cole-Hamilton has confirmed that he would take a job as a Cabinet Secretary in a Holyrood administration led by Anas Sarwar.

Speaking to The Herald on the campaign trail, the party leader said it was likely the Scottish Parliament elections in two years would lead to a change of government in Edinburgh, and that his party would seek to be "part of that change.

“We're grown-ups, and we didn't just get into politics to shout from opposition,” the Edinburgh Western MSP said.

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The Lib Dems were Labour’s minority partners in the Scottish Executive, with party leaders Jim Wallace and Nicol Stephen both holding the office of Deputy First Minister.

Polls suggest the race to form the next Scottish Government could be close.

Last week’s Savanta poll forecast the SNP to win 42 seats at Holyrood, while Labour would win 41.

The Tories would be on 21, the Greens on 14 and the Lib Dems on 11.

With any future SNP-Green deal looking unlikely after the collapse of the Bute House Agreement, Anas Sarwar may need to look to Mr Cole-Hamilton for support.

The Lib Dem chief said that may not mean a coalition government.

He pointed to the arrangements adopted by his party in the capital, where the Labour minority administration relies on the votes of Lib Dems councillors.

“We take no special responsibility allowances, we have no cabinet positions, but they have to run everything by us.

“And in fact, last year, it was a Liberal Democrat budget that was passed across the city of Edinburgh.

“So you don't need to be in power to wield power.

“We'll look at the numbers and we'll do what's right and I don't leap out of bed every morning thinking how do I become a cabinet minister? But I don't fear the idea of it either.

“That's a long way off, but change is definitely coming and the Lib Dems will be part of that change, whether it's in power or from a very influential space in opposition.”

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With little more than a week to go until the general election, Mr Cole-Hamilton says his party is in a good position to add to their tally of MPs.

While the party won four seats at the 2019 election, changes to Scotland’s constituencies have left them notionally defending two.

Polls suggest they could keep those, and win back the seats they have lost as a result of the Boundary Commission and even gain Mid-Dunbartonshire at the expense of the SNP.

“We're having a great time,” Mr Cole-Hamilton adds. “It feels like it's been a while since we've had as positive and upbeat an election campaign for ages actually.

“And, touch wood, we've not had any of the problems some of the other parties had so far.”

He is confident his vote will turn out.

“When people reach the decision they're a Liberal Democrat they become quite motivated a bunch.”

Mr Cole-Hamilton said that during the campaign he had come across a number of former SNP voters “who are not just moving away from the SNP, but actively looking for the best placed party to beat them locally.”

“A lot of them still support independence, that's fine but they know that the idea the SNP are anywhere near a second referendum is for the birds.

“So when that proposition is taken away as a motivator, they think well, what am I left with? I'm left with a party that's mired in sleaze and scandal in Edinburgh and also no pathway to independence.

“And actually, they're just not very good at governing.”

He compares support for independence to someone having an opinion on “who they want to win Strictly Come Dancing.”

“It's not going to be the reason they go and vote. People have opinions. Or you may have some faith.

“You might be a particular brand of Christianity or Islam but it's not going to be the reason you go and cast your vote in a certain box.

“And I think the salience of that issue has cratered. It has dropped through the floor.”

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One of the pledges in the Scottish Lib Dem manifesto is a promise to require political parties to publish candidate diversity data.

However, the 57 Westminster hopefuls fielded by Mr Cole-Hamilton’s party are not very diverse when it comes to sex.

Just 28% of their candidates are women, far fewer than the Greens, the SNP, and Labour, and slightly less than the Tories.

“Ultimately, it's not right for the leader of the party to interfere in local party selection contests,” he says when asked why the number of female candidates is so low.

“What I would point out is that right now we have exactly in terms of our retiring parliamentary members, the ones that have just been divested of their status as parliamentarians, it was exactly 50-50.

“If we only get five MPs then we will have majority female representation in Parliament.”

He says Lib Dems could look again at all women shortlists if there was a “concern that diversity isn't as good as it could be.”

“In the final analysis, I'm confident that we will have pretty close to 50-50 representation across the Westminster group we return to Parliament if not majority female representation.”

“Let's face it,” he adds, “we're not going to win in every constituency.

"We're fighting paper campaigns in certain parts of the country. And in those you know, we have less issue about who's been selected, sometimes that's a credible man, sometimes an incredible female, but they're not going to win.

“They know they're not going to win. They're doing us a favour. And so our focus on gender balance is really in the top flight, in the seats we know we're going to win, we make sure that as much as we can, there is gender balance.”