WITH a membership of now more than 120,000 no-one could accuse the SNP of having not enough foot soldiers.

But as the contest for deputy leader gets going there could still be too many Generals.

Nicola Sturgeon is undoubtedly in charge, the top General, the chief, First Minister, party leader, The Boss.

Then there is Deputy First Minister, John Swinney. The man you would probably want to be in charge if Ms Sturgeon wasn’t around.

Because there are so many SNP MPs in the House of Commons, there needs to be somebody calling the shots down there too. So there is Angus Robertson, Westminster leader.

And I haven’t even mentioned Chief Executive, Peter Murrell, who is obviously a chief. The clue is in his job title.

If it is not Angus Robertson who emerges as the victor, what serious influence or control outwith those mentioned above can the party deputy expect to have.

Other than introducing Nicola Sturgeon to the stage at the party conferences what will the deputy leader actually do?

We are told the deputy will be in charge of the new independence drive.

I doubt it very much. It is obvious Nicola Sturgeon will be in very much charge of the second campaign for independence.

There are four men who have thrown their hat into the ring for the job all of whom already have important jobs to do to occupy them

That’s more contenders to be SNP deputy leader than there are Labour, Tory and LibDem MPs in Scotland combined.

The fact that the contenders represent three different tiers of politics shows the current strength of the SNP.

Not so long ago there would have been few councils under their control and only around a handful of MPs.

It has grown into a movement overtaking Labour as the political machine in Scotland reaching into every community and tier of government but is there a need for so many positions of power below the real power.

Perhaps the deputy contest gives the wider membership, those who joined during and after the referendum, the so called grassroots, a chance to have a voice in a party that is remarkably tightly controlled and very self-disciplined for its size and growing diversity.

With so many people in leadership positions you would expect, as is normal in politics, for the party to be riven by in-fighting and factionalism, but that hasn’t been the case.

The growth in membership and influx of non-traditional SNP members was predicted to come with a truck load of problems for the leadership and party establishment.

That hasn’t happened yet. If there are internal differences, and of course there are, they are kept exactly that, internal.

No doubt the deputy will have functions to perform and duties to carry out.

But everyone knows who is really in charge. Before, it was Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon.

Now it is Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney.

At least the new deputy leader will have a nice title to put on his business cards.