Who would have predicted that the woman who has dominated Scotland for the last decade will soon be a government backbencher, tabling parliamentary questions about children in care rather than making policy about them? Damn few, and they are all women.

Because, despite Sturgeon’s very deliberate avoidance of the phrases gender recognition reform or self-ID, the spectre of double rapist Adam Graham in his cheap blonde wig hovered over the Georgian reception room in Bute House as she drew a line under her political career.

Her resignation was not a reaction to difficult “issues”, she insisted. She was sorry that she was not able to bring “a more rational approach” to the debate, she said. I have always been a feminist, she reminded us. Nothing to see here folks, I am just tired and need a change of pace.

Up to a point First Minister, up to a point. Every middle-aged woman, even those who don’t share your views on gender, or independence, or the economy, will empathise with your desire to focus on your life rather than your career. If only you had empathised with women across Scotland – of all parties and none – when they tried to tell you that your plan to let anyone over the age of 16 change their legal sex simply by filling in a form was a disaster in the making. Instead, you told them their views were “not valid”.

If only you had listened to Rona Hotchkiss, the former governor of Cornton Vale who warned of the dangers of letting male sex offenders into an all-female prison. If only you had listened to JK Rowling – who, like you, celebrates humanity’s rich diversity and has always campaigned for a more inclusive society – when she said women need their safe single-sex spaces.

And if only you had listened to the women in your own party, including Ash Regan, Michelle Thomson and Joanna Cherry, who begged you to re-consider your plans for gender reform. Instead, your party dumped able women like former MSP Joan McAlpine for daring to speak out. You didn’t, because you were always right – until Adam Graham, a double rapist masquerading as Isla Bryson, proved you wrong.

Gender reform is not the First Minister’s only failure. The thousands of Scots who have died from drug misuse since 2014 will forever stain her legacy. Baby boxes do not compensate for the education attainment gap that she said was her priority, until it wasn’t. And the cause closest to her heart – independence – is further away now than it was when she took office.

Isla Bryson, also known as Adam Graham, was initially sent to a women's prison despite convictions for rape (Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

She may have convinced some London commentators that she was a political giant. ITV’s Robert Peston described her earlier as “one of the most important politicians of this generation”. But in the final analysis, she promised much and achieved very little.

As she kicks off her signature four-inch heels tonight and sits back, glass of wine in hand, I wonder if she might have even a tinge of regret that she – ‘feminist to her fingertips’ – did not listen to the women of Scotland?

Nicola Sturgeon may deny it, but rapist Adam Graham, aka Isla Bryson, played a part in her downfall – Susan Dalgety