ALL of Scottish politics is still reeling from the sudden and untimely death of Alex Salmond, who died on Saturday of an apparent heart attack after delivering a speech in North Macedonia. 

He was a controversial figure especially in his later years, but no one can deny that he was a titanic figure, not just in modern Scottish politics but in all of Scottish history. 

In a strange way it is perhaps fitting that Alexander the Great has died in Macedonia. 

Although the man who led the first majority SNP government and out manoeuvred Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron to bring about the Scottish independence referendum of 2014 has not lived to see his dream of Scottish independence be realised, Salmond's lasting achievement was to change the Scottish political landscape and the national imagination forever. 

When Salmond entered politics the idea of Scottish independence was politically marginal, the preserve of a few politically uninfluential dreamers and idealists, not to be taken seriously by the institutions of “grown-up” Scotland, the Scottish media and establishment, which remained Unionist to its core. 

The legacy of Alex Salmond is to have taken that dream of the restoration of Scotland's independence and not only to bring it into the mainstream of Scottish politics, but to make it the key defining issue which characterises the entire Scottish political landscape. 

Even the political parties which oppose Scottish independence now have to take the idea seriously, the days when they could loftily dismiss and ignore it are a distant memory. 

However, it was only a few decades ago when Labour and the Conservatives did just that. Now the Scottish Conservatives are completely defined by the independence issue, indeed they talk of little else. 

The idea of Scottish independence is now deeply entrenched in Scottish culture, not just in Scottish politics. 

There is an entire generation of Scots who do not remember a time without a Scottish Parliament and a Scottish Government. No one in Scotland younger than their mid 30s remembers much of the era of direct Westminster rule. That generation is now having children of its own. 

Those people take it for granted that Scotland is perfectly capable of governing itself and making its own decisions and amongst them support for independence is overwhelming. 

A clear majority of Scots now believe that independence will happen sooner or later, and that belief is reflected in an increasing national self-confidence which has no time for the self-doubt and deprecation of the Scottish Cringe. 

That increased Scottish national self-confidence is seen in many spheres, from the greater respect and attention paid to Scotland's national languages, Gaelic and Scots, to a greater willingness to criticise British institutions in Scotland, particularly the BBC and the monarchy. 

These changes were all set in train by Salmond's leadership of the SNP, and his achievement of what was hitherto thought to be impossible, winning an absolute majority in the Scottish Parliament despite the voting system being the result of a cosy agreement between the Labour and the LibDems, designed to ensure that they would be able to govern in coalition in perpetuity.

'Indyref put the fear of God into the British establishment'

Salmond had other ideas, and in 2011 he achieved the politically unthinkable, and won a majority for the SNP in Holyrood in that year's Scottish Parliament election. That victory brought about 2014 independence referendum.

With the benefit of a decade's hindsight we now know that the route to an independence referendum carved out by that historic victory in 2011 was a one off, never to be repeated, and in the intervening years the SNP and the wider independence movement have expended too much time and energy in attempting to use a route which Westminster has blocked forever. 

We now know that Salmond only succeeded in wresting a Scottish independence referendum out of Tory Prime Minister David Cameron was because of the arrogant belief of the British establishment that the No campaign would trounce the independence campaign, coasting to an easy victory in excess of 70% of the vote. 

Cameron calculated that this would neutralise the political movement for Scottish independence forever, and Scotland could safely be put back in its Union flag-branded shortbread tin and the lid firmly shut. 

Although the Better Together campaign won, it did so narrowly, and only by scaremongering and blatantly lying, making Vows that Westminster had no intention of delivering on. 

The independence referendum campaign put the fear of God into the British establishment. No British Prime Minister will ever repeat Cameron's mistake. 

Indeed, the perfidious behaviour of the Labour and Conservative parties in the years since 2014 raise serious doubts about whether Westminster would have honoured the result of the 2014 referendum had the outcome been reversed. 

Although the path to a referendum forged by Salmond has proven to be unrepeatable, he firmly implanted in the Scottish psyche the idea that it is for the people of Scotland and no one else to determine the future of this country. That is Salmond's lasting legacy and achievement. 

In his prime, he was one of the best political operators not just Scotland, but the UK has ever seen. 

In his later years Salmond became a controversial and divisive figure amongst many who had once been loyal to him. Like most Scottish national heroes he was a deeply flawed man. The later controversies, legal issues, and the bitter split from the party he once led do not diminish the magnitude of his achievements. 

Although he still had many supporters, by the end of his life many of those who once looked up to him as a hero had grown tired of him and had come to believe that he had lost his previous political judgement. 

Salmond will be remembered not just as a great politician, but as a Scottish national hero, taking his place in the pantheon of other flawed but great men who have been heroes and champions of Scotland's cause.

He was a class act, and we will never see his like again.