ELIN JONES is rapidly becoming one of the most respected AMs of any party, writes Clive Betts from the Assembly press gallery.

Which indeed raises questions of who should be the next leader of Plaid Cymru.

A few days ago a report ranked her as one of the most highly-rated among her fellow AMs, significantly outranking her own party leader Ieuan Wyn Jones.

This week she delivered the official cabinet weekly briefing to the press.  After half-an-hour cheerfully batting awkward questions back and forth with members of the press gallery, her ranking as being at the top of the 60 down Cardiff Bay was clearly confirmed.

Of course, many would argue that the agriculture minister has her path forwards blocked.  There is no vacancy and not likely to be.

IWJ is certainly not thinking in public of standing down.  More important, he is no doubt not thinking even in private about giving up.

After all, having got rid of Dafydd Wigley, former AM for Caernarfon, as leader of the party, there is hardly any way that he would give any consideration of dropping his bid for the top job in Wales – First Minister after the next election..

Of course, there is no doubt that Plaid is heading to become the leading party in the Assembly; say party apparatchiks. There is not a shadow of doubt in their minds.

Except that the Tories are flying politically heavenwards, whatever the swings currently under way in the opinion polls.

Although the Tories may not manage to field a rugby team of Welsh MPs after next spring’s election, there is not a shadow of doubt that it will easily pass the number of Plaid representatives sent to Westminster.

But what about in Cardiff ? The dynamics in Cardiff Bay are different, largely because of the more-democratic election system.

However, a major Tory advance at Westminster is certain to lead to a follow-on and a catch-up effect for the Tories in the Senedd. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the most important party in Cardiff after the 2011 elections, although perhaps not in number of seats, would be the Tories.

Were that to happen, bang would go Mr Jones’s hopes of becoming First Minister.

A political disaster for Plaid would very rapidly see the resurfacing – I repeat, resurfacing – of long-running, but also long-suppressed, calls for a new leader for Plaid.

Recently, the name of Adam Price, current MP for Carmarthen West and Dinefwr, has resurfaced as a lead figure for that position. Mr Adam is resigning his seat so that he can – eventually – switch to Cardiff.

In the interim, he plans to engage in a period of academic study in the United States – Mr Price possesses an enviable record in academia and research.

But my presumption that Mr Price has his career pathway neatly mapped out seems completely wrong – after all, he has been thinking for some years about engineering this move from London to Cardiff, with the intention of eventually heading for the Plaid leadership.

A journalistic contact who is much closer than me nowadays to what is happening says that my presumption is TOTALLY FALSE. Mr Price, says my contact, does not know where to go next. The words “personal crisis” are mentioned. Unfairly ? You’d better ask my contact.

I have no wish to enter into what may indeed be a touch of journalistic hyperbole.

But then there’s a second side to the entire issue. And that is the issue of the attitude of Plaid Cymru, the political party as a body. In particular of the attitude of its leadership – if it can be said to be one of any real stature, in the mould and ranking of either Dafydd Wigley or Gwynfor Evans.

What does Plaid as a body believe its future is; who should be its next leader ? What is being discussed in private, behind the kitchen curtains where journalists are strictly excluded ? Or is all such thought banned ?

But Plaid is surely not that stupid. Which is where the agriculture minister comes in. And that poll of what AMs think of their colleagues.

I am told – believe it or not, and I leave it to whether you believe this second contact of mine  – that Plaid voted en bloc in that poll for their Ceredigion AM.

Equally, that they voted AGAINST their leader.

Could this mean that the AMs are coming to the conclusion that there is only one person to be built up as the party’s next leader.

Particularly as some would know that she perhaps wouldn’t mind the job. Ms Jones a year or so ago privately ruled herself out – she doesn’t fancy the sometimes stupid scrutiny it involves.

But that was before she obtained experience of working in the cabinet as a minister in a coalition.

As her time in the cabinet increases, she is showing how she is increasingly capable of the top job.

This week, Ms Jones gave a performance which easily outranked her leader.  All right, as a farmer’s daughter, she was spot-on in talking about his ministerial post.  Even so, she easily outranked IWJ.

More interesting was her answer to a question about an obscure planning issue in Gwent. “I’m sure we’ve got a policy, but I don’t know what it is,” she said.

And Ms Jones was able to be humorous when she didn’t know quite what the answer should be. To a Western Mail report that Labour leadership contender Carwyn Jones had vowed that he himself would attend the Copenhagen climate-change conference next month, she had little comment.

Except to emphasise that only one ticket had been booked – by either rail or plane.

Thus, if Carwyn wins, expect a slight touch of sulking from environment minister Jane Davidson, who surely herself expects to go, when Carwyn has said the importance of the meeting demands the attendance of the First Minister.

Unless of course Jane saddles up her trusty bike and sets off for Hook of Holland, and thus adds not a penny to the Assembly’s travelling costs.

What was interesting was Ms Jones’s skill in failing to mention Ms Davidson’s name. Thus cooling any story.

Now, that’s what I don’t like in a journalist. Throwing cold water on a hot issue. But it’s just the sort of skill that is seriously needed in a party leader.