Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney discussed Alex Salmond on Laura Kuenssberg show

Chris Mason
Political editor

Image source, PA Media

Alex Salmond was a man of consequence.

When you walk up the stairwell at Bute House, the official residence of Scotland’s first minister in Edinburgh, looking back at you are each of the occupiers of that office over the last quarter of a century or so.

Whenever I climb those stairs and cast my eye over those portraits, it is impossible to be in any doubt as to who was the most consequential.

Mr Salmond’s political influence extended within and, yes, beyond Scotland, for no one in the last half century has come as close as he did to remoulding, resetting the boundaries and borders of these islands, to redrawing the map of the UK.

For all the arguments of our politics, there is perhaps none more fundamental than where the frontiers of the state lie, and Mr Salmond personified a movement that came closer to shifting them than any other in the modern era.