The key which unlocked Alex Salmond's success - John Curtice

When Alex Salmond was first elected to Westminster in 1987, he was one of just three SNP MPs. Politics in Scotland was still primarily a battle between Labour and the Conservatives. Independence was a subject of minority interest.

But under Mr Salmond’s leadership the SNP became the dominant force in Scottish politics, a party that has now been providing the country’s devolved government for 17 years. And while he proved unable to persuade a majority of Scots to vote for independence, the outcome of the 2014 ballot was much closer than the UK government had anticipated when agreed a referendum should be held. Scotland was left almost evenly divided on the constitutional question, ensuring that the subject has been a centre piece of Scottish political debate ever since.

The key that unlocked this success was the advent of devolution in 1999. Mr Salmond had been unable to persuade his party to participate in the Scottish Constitutional Convention, the forum in which the details of what was to become the initial devolution settlement were negotiated. But he did campaign alongside Donald Dewar and Jim Wallace, the then Labour and Liberal Democrat leaders in Scotland, in in favour of creating a devolved Scottish Parliament in the 1997 devolution referendum.

Alex Salmond pictured in 2005

That success paved the way for the SNP to win as many as 35 seats in the first Holyrood election in 1999. As a result, the party became for the first time in its history a party with a substantial body of full-time elected politicians.

There was then a detour. Mr Salmond, for whom the cut and thrust of debate at Westminster was more appealing than the milder politics of Holyrood, stood down as SNP leader in 2000 and did not contest the 2003 Holyrood election. But when John Swinney, his successor, resigned as leader in 2004 – and it looked as though Mr Salmond’s protégé, Nicola Sturgeon, might be defeated – he was persuaded to take on the leadership a second time. And in 2007, he became First Minister after beating Labour by just one seat.

Running a minority government was not easy. Little progress could be made on advancing independence. But Mr Salmond again demonstrated his ability to reach beyond the confines of his party by successfully securing support from the Conservatives, then led by Annabel Goldie, in key budgetary votes. Meanwhile, that minority government, populated as it was by an unusually talented group of SNP luminaries, established the party’s reputation for competence. That helped lay the foundations for its remarkable success in winning an overall majority in 2011, a success that persuaded the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, to allow the 2014 ballot to go ahead.

Apart from his ability to strike deals with opponents, central to Mr Salmond’s success was a charismatic personality that could light up a room as well as command the largest of political stages, persuading and enthusing his audiences. It was coupled with a seemingly limitless drive that, however, could lead him to expect too much of others. And, in truth, the last ten years of Mr Salmond’s political career was one of decline and disappointment. A falling out with Nicola Sturgeon and, although he was acquitted of all charges, a prosecution for sexual offences both did serious damage to his personal popularity. His Alba party, created as an alternative to the SNP, has enjoyed little electoral success.

Members of the public place flowers outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh after Alex Salmond died aged 69.

But there will be many in the nationalist movement today who will be mourning his passing, while many unionists will pay tribute to a man who had been a formidable political foe.

John Curtice is Professor of Politics, Strathclyde University, and Senior Research Fellow, Scottish Centre for Social Research