Now that Alex Salmond has spectacularly quit the SNP, will this be the end of an era for Scottish nationalism?

So, the political King of Scotland is dead, or at least abdicated. It is quite a moment to see someone at the top of politics laid so low. He was for three decades a permanent star in the political firmament, loved and loathed in equal measure – sometimes by his own side. It is impossible but to have very mixed feelings about Alex Salmond.

Obviously I have no idea whether the allegations against him are true. Genuinely, I would prefer to see the course of the internal Scottish government inquiry and the legal challenges by Salmond himself take their course. No doubt the truth will emerge in due course.

Such processes are always messy and people all too often fail to hear the two, or more, sides to any case. So I don’t mind the fact that I am legally constrained from saying much more, because I feel myself ethically constrained too, just on the grounds of fairness. Everyone deserves a fair trial.

Politically, though, I also find myself conflicted. As someone who has always viewed nationalism as an essentially corrosive, dangerous, cheap form of politics, I am overjoyed to watch the demise of Salmond. He was, more than any other figure, responsible for the recent resurgence of Scottish nationalism and the dominance of the SNP that has emerged since devolution in 1998.

What’s bad about that is the belief, underlying everything, that Scotland’s problems are down to the union with England and the rest of the UK. In reality, Scotland’s social and economic issues are very similar to those in the rest of the country, and require similar solutions. They are about economics and social policy, not the border with England.

Still, even if you despise the SNP and all it stands for, you should respect it as a political movement supported by millions of Scots, and hope that, like every political grouping, it is led by people of principle and ability. This is why the apparent demise of Salmond, temporary or permanent, is something to be regretted.

I have some personal experience of Salmond’s supreme ability as a debater and advocate, having spent the best part of an hour arguing with him about a disputed article in The Independent. Going 10 rounds in the ring with Salmond was punishing. He was, and is, bright, funny, quick witted and confident. Formidable.

All of his successors in leading the SNP either in Scotland or in Westminster (the London show being separate and subordinate, naturally) have failed to live up to his tough debating skills, his political vim and his sheer campaigning ability.

It is he who brought the SNP not only into government for the first time in Holyrood, in 2007, but also as a majority government in his second term, from 2011, under an electoral system specifically designed to avoid absolute majorities and the nightmare of single party SNP government. It is Salmond who almost broke the 300-year old union with England in the independence referendum of 2014.

He was only just defeated, in an honourable campaign that was much superior in quality to the UK-EU referendum that followed in 2016. Salmond’s loss of his Westminster seat at Gordon to the Conservatives was his first failure in any election; in truth, it was more about the shifting dynamics between the Tory and residual Liberal Democrat vote in what was once a safe Lib Dem seat represented by Malcolm Bruce. It was harsh on Salmond, but no humiliation.

For what it’s worth, in my limited dealings with the SNP – an exceptionally hospitable and candid gang as it happens – I always got the impression that they couldn’t really decide what to do with Salmond after he finished as Scottish first minister when he lost the referendum of 2014. He was too prominent to ignore, but also too independent of mind to make, for example, leader of the SNP at Westminster, after he regained a seat there in 2015. It was left to Angus Robertson to take the lead at Prime Minister’s Questions (where Robertson proved an outstanding performer).

Maybe Nicola Sturgeon and her colleagues calculated that Salmond would overshadow her, or embarrass her in some way, if he was granted a kind of shadow leadership role. They had a point.

If independence does eventually come to Scotland, there will be many claiming parenthood, but there will only be one man who has a just claim to be father of it. Whether he will be in a sufficiently happy personal situation to be able to make much of it remains to be seen. Even the biggest beasts in politics tend to fade quickly once they lose office – think of Gordon Brown or even David Cameron. Salmond, like so many others, will have had a distinguished career, but one that ultimately ended in failure, and possibly tragically so.