I first met Salmond in the late 70s (shortly before he got temporarily purged from the SNP for trying to take it to the left) and he's always struck me as impressively focused on the task in hand. (Whereas two other nearly as prominent Scottish politicos I've known personally, Tommy Sheridan and George Galloway, both seemed to be as committed to self-glorification as to getting results).

The fit-up of Salmond seemed to me to be more about putting Nicola Sturgeon in an invidious position than about Salmond personally - after all he was hardly an active campaigner any more. Her handling of the affair was superbly thought-out and guaranteed that the spooks and stooges had close to zero impact on the wider Scottish independence movement. Well done, her.