Chris Mason: Alex Salmond, ex Scotland leader, was man of consequence

A lifelong personal zeal for Scottish independence energised his mission to shift his cause from a sidebar to the mainstream, and to within a whisker of it actually happening.

He never managed it — “the dream shall never die” he said after defeat in the referendum in 2014.

His very public fallout with his successor as first minister Nicola Sturgeon is well documented. He was also cleared of sexually assaulting a number of women after a high profile trial.

His dream for Scottish independence remains unfulfilled, but its pursuit reshapes Scottish politics to this day.

It is a nation, a polity recast in his time and split pretty much down the middle on its constitutional future.

Mr Salmond’s role in shaping that future cannot be underestimated.

He was a primary colours politician — waspish, pugnacious, unrelenting, engaging — and at once complicated and undoubtedly controversial, in his politics and his personal conduct.

But he was, above all, a man of consequence.