Nicola Sturgeon gets an easy ride with the English media. This weekend, with a book to flog and an image to launder, we’ve had to endure another round of softball interviews with the former first minister. And what have we learnt? Her sexuality is ‘non-binary’; she has ‘famed emotional intelligence’; she handled Covid better than Boris; she is the most successful woman in politics since Margaret Thatcher.

Some of that may be true, some of it demonstrably false. But what matters is the Scotland she left behind.

To judge the success of Scotland – and those who lead it – three categories matter most. Two were once sources of national pride; one has always been our Achilles’ heel. Education was once the envy of the world and our economy once punched above its weight, but health outcomes have

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