EUAN MCCOLM: Gripping TV drama is proof that nationalism blinds its adherents to the ugliness displayed by its leaders

If you really want to know how dangerous and corrupting an ideology nationalism is, then I urge you to listen to the words of Nicola Sturgeon.

Reflecting on the breakdown of her relationship with her mentor, Alex ­Salmond, in a new BBC documentary, the former first minister considers his legacy.

‘The reason,’ Ms Sturgeon says, ‘that I paid tribute to him is because he deserved every ounce of the credit he got for what he achieved as SNP leader.’

If ever one needed proof that, to the Nationalist, ‘the project’ is all, then here it is. 

Ms Sturgeon – and many others – may talk about Mr Salmond’s unreasonable behaviour, they may sorrowfully recall colleagues reduced to tears by a bully, and they might even have the courage to condemn him, but all of these things are as nothing when it comes to their ‘analysis’ of Mr Salmond’s ‘achievements’.

The two-part documentary tells how the Salmond-Sturgeon relationship fell apart

Ms Sturgeon and others may believe that the former leader deserves ‘every ounce’ of the credit he received for his political victories but in order for them to do so, they must – and I don’t know how this is possible – be able to entirely separate the man from the politician.

The truth is that Mr Salmond achieved so much by being a thoroughly unpleasant bully, a man with a short temper who’d reduced to tears men and women who’d given him only their loyalty.

If one must credit Mr Salmond for what he achieved as leader of the SNP, then one must be able to justify his appalling behaviour.

The SNP’s successes were built by a man who put his ego and his crackpot project before the feelings of those who worked with him and the consequences for those who voted for him.

The new documentary – a gripping piece of television – tells how the Salmond-Sturgeon relationship fell apart. 

It takes us back to the moment we learned women employed by both the Scottish Government and the SNP had complained about the former first minister’s behaviour while he was in office.

We hear the trembling voices of colleagues he ‘betrayed’ and the viewer will be left in no doubt that Ms Sturgeon and others now see Mr Salmond as a despicable character.

But it’s not as if they didn’t know he was trouble, long ago.

In the summer of 2004, I was sitting by the pool outside a little villa in Aubignan, a Provencal commune. 

It was a glorious sunny day in the south of France and I was paying little attention to the contest, taking place back home, to succeed John Swinney as SNP leader.

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Then my mobile phone started buzzing. ‘All right, Euan,’ said one of Mr Salmond’s key allies. ‘I’ve got a bit of news for you.’

When I’d flown from Glasgow, Roseanna Cunningham was leading Nicola Sturgeon in the race to be the next Nationalist leader. It looked very much like a done deal.

The revised – and entirely inaccurate – version of events is that Mr Salmond, having stepped down as SNP leader in 2000, was suddenly gripped by the desire to return.

We’re invited to believe that Mr Salmond approached Ms Sturgeon, asking if she might consider stepping aside and joining him on a joint ticket. 

The story goes that Ms Sturgeon, selfless to a fault, was approached by Mr Salmond and, after some persuasion, agreed to put her personal ambitions aside.

The truth is that Ms Cunningham was heading for victory and Mr Salmond and others thought that would be a disaster for the SNP.

Ms Cunningham – ‘Republican Rose’ to those in the Scottish political bubble – had no interest in the gradualist approach to independence designed by Mr Salmond. Rather she was a fundamentalist who preferred a more aggressively nationalistic style.

The person who called me in Provence on that afternoon in 2004 was keen to let me know that the Alex Salmond who might be returning as SNP leader was not the same Alex Salmond who had quit four years previously.

There was ‘umming’ and ‘aah-ing’ and more than a few “he’s a changed mans’ before we said goodbye but the gist was that those close to Salmond recognised his temper and ego had already caused some political editors (which I then was) to write him off as a dinosaur who was unpleasant to deal with and that we would be surprised to find he was now a man of empathy and self-reflection.

When Nicola Sturgeon talks about her shock at the way in which Alex Salmond conducts himself, she does so thanks to a profile that would not have existed had he not saved her career.

Within months of the SNP’s 2007 election victory, rumours about Mr Salmond’s behaviour towards staff were swirling around Holyrood.

Any attempts to investigate further were shut down not only by Mr Salmond but by those who now consider him an enemy.

In 2008, I asked two senior SNP cabinet figures directly whether they were aware of any concerns about the then First Minister’s conduct.

Not only did they deny any knowledge, they did so angrily. So angrily, in fact, that although I was unable to report that the First Minister was a bully, I felt certain his colleagues weren’t being fully honest with me.

I – and a number of colleagues in the Holyrood lobby – would go on to hear troubling stories about Mr Salmond in the years that followed but each and every time we dared mention one of these to a senior SNP figure, we’d be slapped down.

Now, it might well be that Mr Salmond’s cabinet was full of politicians who had neither heard of nor taken an interest in concerns about his behaviour. 

It might well be that any who had heard mutterings thought nothing of the fact that several senior journalists and civil servants were fairly openly discussing the mood in the First Minister’s official residence, Bute House.

It might well be that any who had heard mutterings thought nothing of the fact that several senior journalists and civil servants were fairly openly discussing the mood in the First Minister’s official residence, Bute House.

I suppose we will never know.

But I must say that the new documentary tells a story of senior politicians and advisers who knew, long before the Salmond-Sturgeon split, that the then FM was not an easy or even vaguely pleasant man to be around.

The SNP is now a busted flush. The party’s undeliverable promises and its senior politicians’ pathological inability to take responsibility for their failures has exhausted Scottish voters.

Now, only the flag-wavers and English-outers believe that independence is within their grasp.

But still they deny reality, promising their supporters that the case for breaking up the United Kingdom is stronger than ever. Shoppers have long since decided not to buy their apples from that particular cart.

Mr Salmond blustered and bluffed his way to power, then set about dividing a nation he professes to love.

And all of his colleagues lined up behind him to spout his hateful rhetoric about those who didn’t share their monomaniacal obsession with breaking up the Union.

Ms Sturgeon looks at Alex Salmond’s ‘achievements’ and says he deserves ‘credit’. I prefer the word ‘blame’. And Nicola Sturgeon must take her share.