“Too small, too stifling, too divided” – what a great campaigning slogan Nicola Sturgeon has bequeathed to her successors as she prepares to clamber out of the Scottish “goldfish bowl” while eyeing the liberating salons of London.

But what of the poor goldfish left behind? Alas, we must live with the Sturgeon legacies and nobody has done more to foster small-mindedness in our politics, mediocrity in our public life and division in our society than the former First Minister; the woman who inherited so much opportunity and blew it so comprehensively.

As far as I am aware, I have never met Ms Sturgeon but I was in the vanguard of identifying her as a nasty piece of work. That was in the summer of 2000. Sam Galbraith, then Scottish education minister, and his young family were holidaying with us in Lewis; a desperately needed break for the world’s longest-surviving lung transplant patient.

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Sam, as a brilliant neurosurgeon, had spent his life caring for people. The Galbraiths had hardly arrived when a commotion arose about the new Scottish Qualifications Authority which had made a mess of issuing exam results. It was the kind of thing Ministers are accountable for sorting out but nobody with any sense believes they can personally pre-empt.

Sam, of course, was deeply concerned about the implications for pupils and headed straight back to get to the bottom of it and limit the damage. By this time Ms Sturgeon – the SNP’s education........

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