Salmond taught us political journalism is a contact sport

Alex Salmond has died having failed to achieve just two of his great ambitions – make Scotland an independent country, and judge the annual Tartan Bollocks contest for the worst Scottish political story of the year, held at the strictly private Christmas dinner for Holyrood hacks.

- DAVID MADDOX & KATE DEVLIN

The first he almost achieved in 2014, the second he begged each year to be allowed admittance to, when he hosted festive curry nights for journalists at the first minister’s residence Bute House. It suited his tastes for revenge and humiliating others.

My first memory of meeting Salmond involved walking down Union Street in Aberdeen in 2007 and watching as people ran out of shops to come and shake his hand and talk to him.

The only other two British politicians I have witnessed receiving such adulation were Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, who in many ways shared the populist ingredients to change the UK story. Salmond brought the SNP to power and almost delivered independence, Farage delivered Brexit and destroyed the Tories.

Salmond’s untimely death at 69 in North Macedonia brings back some very mixed recollections of a man extraordinarily gifted politically, but who also possessed deep flaws. Close contact with him ranged from him being the most charming person you could ever meet to a monstrous bully.

For a brief time I was in the circle of trusted journalists when I worked in Holyrood for his local paper the Aberdeen Evening Express between late 2006 and early 2008. He would almost always pick up the phone, and when we met in the Scottish parliament he would be charm itself, often putting his arm around me, asking how I was.

He could frame the moment. I remember several conversations on the night of the election victory in 2007, when he would tell me: “I don’t know if I have won but Labour has certainly lost.” But about a fortnight before I changed newspaper one of his advisers told me: “Pity you are leaving for The Scotsman. You know none of us are going to speak to you when you do that.” It was not a joke.