Nicola Sturgeon would be happy to have Syrian refugees living in her home. Her warmth and generosity of spirit are admirable. She sounds as public-spirited as Labour leadership candidate Yvette Cooper who also said she would welcome a refugee in her home.

Both women were responding to questions from journalists. Just imagine for a moment how the headlines would have read if Ms Sturgeon had said: "Do you really think that’s the most effective use of my time?" She would have been criticised, probably called two-faced if not worse. She would have been accused of expecting others to make sacrifices when she was unwilling to do as much herself.

But the answer given by Ms Sturgeon begs a bigger question: what should we expect of politicians in such a crisis? Has our politics really got to the point where we judge a First Minister more by her personal response to a humanitarian emergency rather than by her ability to make good policy?

Offering up her spare bedroom doesn’t solve the bigger problem. I read at the weekend that David Cameron does his paper work between 5am and 7am. Ms Sturgeon’s workload is as demanding. She has become the face of Scotland as well as the country's First Minister.

She has a role in this unfolding human catastrophe that only she can fulfil. Along with her cabinet she must devise a strategy that will fairly represent Scottish opinion as well as provide long-term practical help.

She needs to satisfy the demands of those who are clamouring for refuge, those that want to provide it and those who are looking at the scale of the potential influx with alarm.

In common with other European leaders she must judge where the boundary lies between doing the right thing by fellow human beings and running the risk of triggering resentment among host populations. Lines have to be drawn, but where? Resources need to be found. Taking in refugees is a long-term commitment.

She must also guard against encouraging ever more people in war-torn countries to risk their lives with people smugglers. None of this is easy. It certainly can’t be boiled down to a question like: "First Minister, will you take a refugee into your home?"

Much more important is the policy response. If she gets that right she will have benefitted the lives of many thousands more refugees than a single family.

I just wish she’d said so when asked the question. That would have been the right response and it would have taken the pressure off other politicians.

Think about it. When Tony Blair walked, Messiah-like, through a Kosovan refugee camp, did anyone suggest he put some of them up in his Downing Street flat? Did anyone argue that Ted Heath should share his house with Ugandan Asians when they fled to the UK?

Were Ms Sturgeon and Ms Cooper asked the question because they are women? I wonder. Both responded with understandable humanity. Both were probably caught off guard. But I worry we are in danger of having a compassion competition in the wake of that tragic photograph of three-year old Aylan whose tiny body, floppy as a rag doll, washed up on a Turkish beach.

His death was shocking, a drowning tragedy amongst far too many others. It’s estimated that 333,000 have tried to cross the Mediterranean in the last three months. Almost 3,000 have died. Germany is expecting 800,000 asylum applicants this year, equivalent to one per cent of its population. It admitted more than 17,000 across its border this weekend.

If the UK accepted parity with Germany, it could expect 630,000 asylum seekers this year. Scotland’s share would be one tenth. That’s 63,000 refugees seeking asylum.

These are huge numbers of people, vast populations on the move. As things stand Ms Sturgeon has said Scotland would take 1,000 refugees as a "starting point".

The question is – and it is a serious one – how far will our compassion stretch? It’s the sort of question the First Minister and her cabinet need to be contemplating. It is they who must judge where this country draws the line while demonstrating to ourselves and to the world that we are well-meaning people.

These issues are too big to allow them to be affected by party politics, posturing between Scotland and Westminster or personal popularity jousting. We don’t need Ms Sturgeon housing refugees any more than in 1990 we needed Agriculture Minister John Gummer to feed his four-year-old daughter a beef burger during the BSE scare.

People’s lives are at stake. We can see on Kos and Lesbos – and for a time at Budapest railway station – that mass frustration can lead to violence. There are women and small children on the road. In Calais at the weekend 100 residents from "the jungle" camp marched on the town. They were crying: "Freedom, freedom."

These are macro problems. They require international responses and careful strategic handling. This is the stuff of political power. It’s at this level that Ms Sturgeon needs to focus her talents.

Let her get on with it and leave to less encumbered mortals the question of whether they have the ability and the generosity to open their homes to the desperate. We are witnessing an instinctive desire to help which transformed a near mob at Budapest to a stream of grateful human beings by the time they arrived in Munich to cheers from their German hosts.

Kindness defuses tension. So sharing a home is a magnificent gesture. It's also not a decision to be entered into lightly. According to David Simmonds, chairman of the (UK) Local Government Association’s asylum, migration and refugee task force, it can take several years for an asylum application to be processed and while that is happening the refugee is not allowed to work.

He suggested that Bob Geldof, who offered shelter to four incoming families, should contact his local housing authority and take four of those already languishing on the homeless list.

His is a message at odds with the tide of positive emotion sweeping the country. But Mr Simmonds points out an uncomfortable truth. If the refugees remain permanently they will have a right of access to local authority housing, schools, hospitals and GP surgeries. At a time of cutbacks, there will be further strain on an already stretched system.

Money is to be diverted from the foreign aid budget. But will it be enough? And will our generosity of spirit and willingness to share hold true if it means there’s noticeably less to go around?

One thousand additional mouths to feed won’t over-burden Scotland, though it is just a starting figure. To further quote Ms Sturgeon, she said she would take a refugee into her home "as part of a bigger, wider, more organised approach".

I’m glad she was quick-witted enough to say that. It’s her task, among that of other leading European politicians, to define what that bigger, wider, more organised approach should be. I reckon we should leave her home alone to get on with it; no more silly questions.