Kate Forbes must convert warmth into votes in the Highlands

The Gaelic speaker is liked on her home turf, but SNP members are wrestling with the same issues as others across Scotland

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. “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 unmelted 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.