Since the sudden death of Donald Dewar in October 2000, the Labour Party in Scotland has had nine leaders and is now electing its 10th.

Save for Henry McLeish, Wendy Alexander and Neil Gray, I got to know the others to some degree or other.

At one restaurant lunch with Dewar, he asked if I was finishing the last potato on my plate. I was about to suggest he could help himself but, before the words escaped, his fork flashed, skewered the tattie and whisked it off to his open mouth.

It was an impressively swift sleight of hand and confirmation that Dewar’s nickname was well-earned. He was The Gannet.

Alongside his prodigious appetite, Dewar was razor-sharp, engaging and mischievous. I liked him a lot (fortunately, history does not record what he thought of me).

But then I also liked Jack McConnell, Johann Lamont, Jim Murphy, Kezia Dugdale, Richard Leonard and Anas Sarwar.

All are very different characters but there is a common theme – I considered them genuinely committed to public service.

Not everyone will share my opinion and that’s entirely legitimate. Politics can be a contact sport with brutal exchanges that leave bruises, some of which never heal.

But despite vehemently........

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