We will never see the likes of Alex Salmond again

Of all the thousands of tributes paid to Alex Salmond since his untimely and premature death the one that best sums up Alex is that from Adam Boulton, the former Sky News political editor. Adam wrote: ‘He was a world class politician, whether you liked him or not.’ There aren’t many objective observers of the Scottish and UK political scene who would disagree with that astute observation.

Alex Salmond was the first and only politician in over 300 years since the 1707 Act of Union who came anywhere near to taking Scotland to the brink of regaining its status as an independent country. Between February and September 2014, support for independence rose from 28 per cent to 45 per cent on referendum day. That was despite the massive campaign carried out by ‘Better Together’, the Labour/Tory/Liberal coalition of unionist parties opposed to independence.

While Alex ran a positive, upbeat, optimistic campaign, the unionist camp focussed on trying to scaremonger the Scots into voting ‘No’ to independence.