Five election takeaways from the BBC Scotland leader debate

There hasn’t been a huge amount of discussion of independence during this campaign so far.

The SNP seems to have landed on a strategy of emphasising it when speaking to its own base – its conference-style campaign launch was thick with talk of the constitution.

But when facing the electorate at large, the topic has been buried. It was barely mentioned in either of the previous TV debates.

Here, things were different – thanks to the audience, who posed a direct question. And the answers were revealing.

Lorna Slater actually seemed more on the front foot – she was the one who raised independence first, and she was the one who was chasing the other party leaders on the topic.

John Swinney did come in to offer his own support for independence – no surprises there – but for the most part he physically stood back to let Ms Slater make the running.

This is fascinating when you consider the extent to which the Scottish Greens are targeting pro-independence parties who have been almost uniformly coralled by the SNP in the past.

Douglas Ross’s response was reasonably predictable, given the way his party has carved out a recovery in Scotland by cloaking itself in the Union flag.

The Lib Dems also stuck to a “can’t we talk about something else” position.

Anas Sarwar, meanwhile, is pivoting Scottish Labour’s standpoint from one of hard opposition to independence to a more agnostic position.

He says he doesn’t care how people feel about independence, as long as they will come with him “on this part of the journey” for this election.

How that might work in the Holyrood campaign in 2026 is a much more difficult question, but he seems happy to cross that bridge later.