I KNOW there are some people who are quite enjoying the sight of the smoke and fire billowing up from the SNP leadership race but maybe a better way of looking at it is that the contest is a chance for the party to realise its mistakes, adjust its message, and reboot with a more intelligent and rational campaign that has more chance of success. We’ll see.

The signs are not good though. We know the SNP has failed to consistently increase support for independence since 2014 and yet there is little evidence – in the higher echelons of the party anyway – that they are engaging in a serious debate about a rethink or reset. If you keep saying the same things, you get the same result, therefore stop saying them.

So, as an outsider looking in (with a bit of smoke in my eyes) I wondered if I might suggest some of the things that have been said in the contest so far that are counterproductive, by which I mean they work for some of the hard-core but don’t work for voters who are yet to be convinced. They – we – are looking for something different.

Mark Smith: Look out everyone – it’s another idea for a Scottish law

Number one is: “all we need is 50+1”. This is something Ash Regan said. According to her, if pro-independence parties have more than 50% of the votes in any election, that would be an instruction that Scotland wishes to be independent; Ms Regan says she could then start negotiating with Westminster for independence. Oh, and we’d also be moving to a Scottish currency within the first few months apparently.

The baloney about currency aside, it seems to me that Ms Regan’s remarks seem to reveal a real lack of awareness that the argument over support for independence has been moving on for some time now. Increasingly, nationalists themselves are recognising that you need to build a settled majority before independence has any chance of happening and that probably means consistent public support of around 60% or above.

I’m referring here to nationalists such as Tom Arthur, the MSP for Renfrewshire South whose recent comments on the subject have been interesting. A close result such as 50+1, he says, would be problematic whoever won. If it was No, nationalists wouldn’t accept the result (we know that already don’t we?). But if it was Yes, he says, it would probably lead to demands for a further confirmatory referendum. This is all really logical stuff.

But it is Mr Arthur’s comments on building sustained support for independence that could be really useful. In his opinion, a settled public view means support of over 60% and that can only be realised by improving the perception of devolved government and promoting a clear prospective that opponents of independence can regard as credible (which presumably means no plans for a new currency "within months").

“We are not in a situation where independence is the settled will,” he said, “and we need to be honest with ourselves if we are to be credible at home and internationally.” Mr Arthur is right, but who’s listening?

Mark Smith: Another sign Scottish universities aren’t standing up for free speech

The second thing nationalists shouldn’t be saying is related to Mr Arthur’s comment about improving the perception of devolved government and it’s this: “we’re pressing ahead anyway”. We saw it with the hate crime bill. We say it with gender reform. And now we’re seeing it again with the bottle deposit scheme.

The scheme is a good idea (in principle) but it isn’t ready to go and yet the minister in charge – I’m afraid it’s Lorna Slater – says the government is pressing ahead. It’s the kind of thing that, deep down, undermines any campaign for independence because if we don’t see people being competent, able and good in running devolved government, it makes us question whether they’d be any better running independent government.

And so to number three: “no media allowed” which happened at the recent leadership hustings when the SNP initially said they wouldn’t be letting the press in. This goes to the heart of the party really, rather than the wider campaign for independence: the SNP has always been far too desperate to control the narrative (even though it doesn’t work) and it’s a much better idea to have open conversation and discussion.

Joanna Cherry made a similar point about the attitude to party members themselves: people are encouraged not to question policy or strategy on pain of being called disloyal, “not a team player” or worse and only a reset can sort this out. Ms Cherry is right, but who’s listening?

Which takes us to the fourth thing nationalists should avoid saying which is “I wouldn’t have voted for gay marriage” or anything else along those lines. There are unionists who appear to fear Kate Forbes as First Minister on the basis that her socially conservative views might attract Tory voters.

But I suspect it’s much more likely her comments will put a brake on the recruitment from progressive politics. If you have a leader who’s dubious about gay marriage, sex before marriage, and abortion, aren’t young people going to be tempted by Labour instead? And aren’t conservatives likely to stick with the Tories anyway because they don’t like independence? Lose-lose.

Mark Smith: Sorry, but Glasgow should charge for all museums and galleries

And so to my final point which is a little more trivial but still revealing in its own way and it concerns something Alex Salmond said in relation to the coronation and the Stone of Destiny. The former First Minister said that, in a context where “the legitimate desire of the people of Scotland to have a referendum” is being denied by the Westminster government, the Scottish Government shouldn’t just meekly hand the stone over. He also said this: “the authorities will probably whip it away before the contest is finalised; that’s the kind of underhand trick where it was stolen in the first place.”

Mr Salmond himself admitted this wasn’t the most serious point he’d ever made, but it’s this particular type of nationalism that many unionists find particularly off-putting. The kind that can’t seem to see beyond symbols like stones or flags. But also the kind that seems perpetually bad-tempered. It’s that old thing, isn’t it, about Scots being grumpy lodgers in the UK rather than open-minded participants and it’s the kind of vibe that the leadership candidates need to get shot of pronto.

Maybe there’s a chance: the comments on gay marriage aside, Kate Forbes’s campaign in particular has emphasised the positive. But I don’t see many signs really, through the flames and the smoke, that the candidates are genuinely looking back at what’s worked and what hasn’t. However, it’s only by doing that that they will start to make the kind of progress that all three of them so desperately crave.