SNP leadership Forbes is darling of Highlands, but will her faith be her undoing?

Pamela MacKenzie presides over an enviable array of fillings at Batty's Baps sandwich bar on Dingwall high street. "Kate Forbes has been very good for the area," she says.

- Libby Brooks

"We always get forgotten in the Highlands, even in the weather reports, but she gets things done."

Winter is not yet done with the north of Scotland and the pavements are edged with chunks of snow. But the warmth that locals feel towards their MSP who represents the vast Holyrood constituency of Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, and is now a frontrunner to succeed Nicola Sturgeon as leader of the Scottish National party - is palpable.

"The Kate that we know is always looking for an opportunity to help." At the end of the high street is the National hotel, where Gregg and Kathryn Brain reflect over coffee on the trajectory of the young woman who supported their fight against deportation to Australia in 2016 "only minutes" after she was elected.

“She went from being one of the youngest MSPs to delivering the budget at a few hours’ notice,” adds Kathryn, recalling the moment in 2020 when Forbes stepped up to replace the disgraced former finance minister, Derek Mackay , seeding her reputation for economic competence.

Despite their evident fondness for Forbes, the couple, both SNP members, have still to decide whom to support in the leadership election: Forbes, promising a “reset” but losing prominent backers when she set out her opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion as a member of the socially conservative Free Church of Scotland; the health secretary, Humza Yousaf , who enjoys the majority of support from MSPs and is regarded as the continuity candidate; or the outlier Ash Regan.

The Brains represent a significant minority of undecideds who are key to a contest described as existential in terms of its impact on the party’s future ethos, policies and independence strategy.