Scottish First Minister John Swinney discussed Alex Salmond on Laura Kuenssberg's show

A man of importancepublished at 10:43am British Summer Time, October 13

Chris Mason
Political Editor

Alex Salmond was an important man.

When you walk up the stairs of Bute House, the official residence of Scotland’s First Minister in Edinburgh, looking back you see each of the occupants of that office over the last quarter of a century or so.

Whenever I climb those stairs and look at those portraits, it’s impossible to have any doubts about who was the most important.

Mr Salmond’s political influence extended within and, yes, beyond Scotland, for no one in the last half century came as close as he did to reshaping, redefining the boundaries and borders of these islands, to redrawing the map of the United Kingdom.

For all the arguments in our politics, there are perhaps none more fundamental than where the state’s borders lie, and Mr Salmond personified a movement that came closer to changing them than any other in the modern era.