NICOLA Sturgeon was always going to provide target practice for the other four leaders and so it proved with both her opponents and the audience getting stuck in – principally over whether matters constitutional would impact adversely on Covid recovery.

It did however mean that she got a fair amount of air time to combat the charges levelled at her government and its perceived failures – in health and education in particular.

Anas Sarwar on cancer treatment gap sites, and Willie Rennie on social care, reprised their greatest hits from the last batch of First Minister’s Questions.

Rennie, incidentally, was the first to mention the “S” word, flagging up the Alex v Nicola imbroglio twice in the first 15 minutes.

READ MORE: ‘Decisions must be taken in Scotland’: FM makes case for independence at BBC debate

Douglas Ross confirmed his status as the election’s one trick pony, endlessly talking up the folly, as he saw it, of having another referendum. Anas Sarwar twice called him out on this (I’ve always thought it passing strange that the party most obsessing on independence was not the party formed to fight for it, but the Tories).

Still, at least it saves them money on new literature and billboards. No2IndyRef2 turns out to have quite the shelf life.

At times the three Unionist parties sounded as if they had been writing a joint script in the green room; never has the word divisive worked so hard as they collectively set their face against another vote on self determination.

Canadian engineer Lorna Slater, co-convenor of the Greens, unsurprisingly came over best on climate change, including a particularly fine eye roll at Douglas Ross’ flannelling.

She needed to up her profile and didn’t do herself any harm. The most interesting subtext of the evening was the scratchy exchanges between Sarwar and Ross; Anas very evidently with the number two spot in Holyrood in his sights.