When Nicola Sturgeon broke down at the UK Covid inquiry she was accused of shedding crocodile tears. They looked real enough to me, induced by having her motives impugned and of watching what was left of her legacy leach away under Jamie Dawson KC’s questioning.

The former first minister was willing to admit to errors of judgment. What she could not accept was that she had ever acted in anything other than what she believed to be the best interests of the people of Scotland.

This may be true. Sturgeon has long worn the air of a Sunday school teacher driven by civic duty and a compulsion to take the burdens of the world on her shoulders. But what her appearance in front of the inquiry exposed was the hubris that underpins that sense of moral purpose. Sturgeon was convinced that she, and she alone, was capable of effective decision-making. Her sleepless nights were less a testament to her dedication than evidence of an inability to delegate, which was the hallmark of her leadership and the opposite of good governance.

Sturgeon’s control freakery was visible in the setting up of “gold command” meetings to which only a chosen few were invited. This clique did not, in 2020, include the finance secretary, Kate Forbes, even when the economic impact of a potential circuit breaker was under discussion.

It was visible, too, in the deletion of her WhatsApp messages. Sturgeon, we know, called Boris Johnson “a fucking clown”, a sentiment few north of the border would disagree with. But for all their differences, she........

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