WHAT makes a great political leader?

Is it someone who backs the policy that animates most voters? Someone with connections and respect in their own political party? Someone who can unite the different faiths, outlooks and backgrounds of the country? Someone feared by the opposition? Or someone able to take the population along paths they know they must tread, even if they’d rather set off next year, decade or century, because the going looks rough?

Obviously, a great leader is a dexterous mixture of all the above – with added, superhuman reserves of stamina. The question is whether the SNP leadership debate will challenge contenders on all these fronts, or get hooked on the most sensational, headline-grabbing issues and fail to test for that long-term vision. The answer is very largely in the hands of the broadcast media.

The stooshie surrounding Kate Forbes’s socially conservative views on gay marriage, sex outside marriage and unmarried parents have sucked the oxygen from the room during the first week of campaigning.

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For better or worse, the Finance Secretary has become the talk of the steamie, with clips of her TV interviews on every channel, along with strong reactions from Holyrood and Westminster SNP colleagues and a storm of comment on Twitter.

By contrast, the other two candidates have struggled to get a televisual word in edgeways. The register for this contest has been instantly set at LOUD, so it’s been hard for rivals to get noticed unless they match the same headline-grabbing capacity of the frontrunner – albeit those headlines are not the ones Kate Forbes would have consciously chosen.

So, we’ve got the faith thing. We’ve got the positions of every candidate on gay marriage. It’s time for the media to do us all a favour, widen out debate and put would-be FMs on the spot about every issue including their overall vision for Scotland.

Since Nicola’s reign was cut short by (or ended naturally amidst) disquiet over trans rights, independence strategy and the transition from oil and gas, policy disagreements within the SNP are surfacing for the first time in years and with all the force of a high-pressure hose. That’s disconcerting for party members and an electorate used to a single well-argued case. But it’s also high time.

Yet Nicola Sturgeon has dominated the Holyrood despatch box, Covid briefing room and every other podium for so long, voters must also suddenly assess candidates in other ways – how they interact with one another, come across on TV – essentially how they hold themselves.

Of course, ideas matter more. But people make character judgements in a whole host of non-policy and non-verbal ways as well. That might not be right or wise. But it is inevitable. So, it’s up to the broadcasters to get beyond slick presentation to the bits we really need to know.

Can the candidates take Scotland along the difficult paths we have to tread? Do they have a vision for a nation that could soon be an independent country or – if the predicted Labour landslide comes to pass – the recipient of substantially more reserved powers?

Are SNP members selecting a leader in the way our mums used to select school jaikets – with enough room for the inevitable growth they saw coming? Or like the best mid-fielder – passing the ball into space, slightly ahead of the pack and not at the feet of their forwards? Because both these confident instincts are right. Scotland is growing and must keep growing - the right FM must direct that process. So, will the SNP leaders’ debate be conducted?

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In short, will the SNP leaders’ debate be conducted at the level of a big cooncil or pretendy parliament, or will broadcasters, SNP members and the wider public demand more: evidence of a strategy that takes us from an oil and gas dependent country to a new sustainable future with jobs, contracts, construction and benefits accruing here, not overseas?

Sure, candidates can win votes in the north-east by talking up a future for oil and gas. Every community along the A9 will warm to folk who want dualling completed. Some SNP members will back a defiant legal challenge to Westminster over its veto of the GRR bill, whilst others will breathe a sigh of relief that two candidates plan to let it drop.

But the task of a First Minister is greater, even than all these big issues. Who, looking five or ten years ahead, can vividly describe what they see and give us a powerful, motivating sense of overall direction? Because that’s urgently needed. And since no man or woman is an island, who can work collaboratively with MSP and MP colleagues – and the Yes-leaning think tanks ignored during Nicola Sturgeon’s time at the top – to get Scotland on track?

Alan Riach, professor of Scottish literature at Glasgow University, wrote in 2016 that kinship across differences is the foundational story of Scotland, stretching from Columbus to Malcolm Canmore (literally great leader ceann mór in Gaelic) who endorsed “the understanding that a nation is made up of different groups, languages, geographical areas, terrains, economies and cultural preferences”.

So, who will best uphold kinship across “the variousness of this nation’s people”? And if that individual choice is tough, then who has the wisdom to recognise their shortcomings and encourage genuinely collegiate leadership? Who has the skills to bring party, membership and movement together to harness the energy that’s currently clanging about?

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Sure, there have been disappointments about project delivery on Nicola Sturgeon’s watch. But that doesn’t mean her vision was wrong. Indeed, problems arose from her failure to be bold or radical enough – on the National Energy Company for example. Still, delivery certainly needs to improve.

But let’s not ditch the baby with the bathwater. Scotland has become the thought-leader in these islands. Constant in our support for public ownership and first to tackle issues Westminster body-swerves, equivocates over and sometimes follows – from the shift to renewables, negotiating with trade unions on pay, producing a Scottish Child Payment and free school meals all year round.

Scotland has acquired a strong international reputation. Which candidate will enhance it?