Nicola Sturgeon will look back on her 26 year political career with a mixture of regret, frustration and anger.
Regret over the policy shifts she wanted to achieve in office, but failed to deliver.
Frustration that her life-long dream of independence never materialised.
And anger at Alex Salmond who she feels betrayed her and who ultimately overshadowed her.
Sturgeon’s ascent to the post of First Minister was planned and inevitable.
She was a key part of the Salmond modernisation project that started in the 1990s and continued into devolution. She was always going to take over the SNP one day and no one else stood a chance.
The tragedy of Sturgeon’s nine years in Bute House was her inability to transform a country she had waited so long to lead.
Yes, as the first woman in the job she was a trailblazer. True, becoming the longest-serving First Minister is worthy of respect. Granted, she led Scotland through the emergency of covid in a way that should command respect.
But winning and holding onto power through successive election wins should only be the means to an end.
The question that must nag Sturgeon is: what did she actually achieve?
So much of her time in office was spent on a second independence referendum, an issue reserved to Westminster. Scotland was crying out to be united in the wake of the 2014 vote but Sturgeon kept pushing for a rerun.
With a few brief pauses, he time in office was an endless series of dates and milestones on a referendum that was never going to take place.
Taking her eye off the ball resulted in the services under her devolved control suffering. She said slashing the educational attainment gap would be her top priority, but she never followed through.
The NHS became a shambles on her watch while homelessness and deaths from drugs became a grim double crises.
But it was her relationship with the man who she considered a father figure that defined her political career. Salmond had identified Sturgeon as a star in the 1990s and eased her path to the upper echelons of the SNP.
She became deputy SNP leader when he launched a political comeback and she was his Deputy First Minister after the party’s historic Holyrood win in 2007.
Sturgeon was always Salmond’s first choice as a successor and his support for her when he stood down was undimmed.
Their rift over the Sturgeon Government’s botched probe into sexual harassment claims against Salmond was like a bomb exploding under their relationship.
Salmond wanted her to stop the investigation and she – understandably – refused. He then blamed her supporters for the criminal complaints that led to his sexual offences trial.
Sturgeon believed the man she felt she had known was in fact a creep who was trying to bring her down as First Minister.
But the psychodrama between Sturgeon and Salmond has another dimension – professional rivalry.
Salmond achieved more in his first four years in office than Sturgeon pulled off in nine years in the top job. He secured a referendum while his successor never got close to delivering indyref2, even though she won countless elections.
When voters think of Salmond’s time in office, they think of free prescriptions, free higher education and a confident, upbeat nation. When voters cast an eye over Sturgeon’s reign, they think of indyref2 being dangled in front of them, incompetence and division.
She was a better person, but he was a better leader.
It is also ironic that a feminist First Minister would alienate so many female voters. Regardless of where you stand on gender reform legislation, a new law on helping trans people was always a low priority for voters.
Her self-ID legislation created needless division and was an example of a politician out of step with the county she claimed to know inside out.
The age of Sturgeon was not a complete wash out.
Her delivery of the Scottish Child Payment for low income kids, which now stands at nearly £30 a week, was a success. She also presided over an overhaul of free childcare for worn out parents.
Part of her legacy is that children from poorer backgrounds receive greater support than south of the border.
But voters should expect more from a politician who held the levers of power for nearly a decade.
Punters should also consider the state of Scotland as she prepares to quit politics next year. The constitutional divide is as wide as ever, public services are on their knees and the debate on gender she helped start spiralled out of control.
Operation Branchform, the police probe into allegations of SNP fraud when she was leader, also remains an unresolved issue.
Sturgeon is currently writing her memoirs and this damaging episode will, for legal reasons, be unlikely to feature heavily.
All leaders should be judged on whether they left their country in a better position than when they took over.
Sturgeon, unlike her predecessor, failed.
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