THE titanic struggle between Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon – the dominant Scottish political figures of their generation – is an extraordinary spectacle. For nationalists it must seem to have all the elements of a Greek tragedy. Mentor and protege, once the closest of allies, now the most bitter of enemies, locked in a very public and unedifying battle of enormous wills.

A litany of evasions may be Ms Sturgeon’s most immediate problem, not however her biggest. This is that she has so little to show for 14 years of SNP hegemony in Scotland. Political success – and the run could be extended in May – hasn’t been used to build the promised record of substantial government achievement. Indeed, paradoxically, political success seems to explain the governing failure – it’s telling that the SNP achieved most during a first term when their hold on the levers of power was least secure.

The easy explanation is that since 2011 the SNP has subordinated everything to prosecuting the case for separation. Of course that's important, but doesn’t offer a complete answer. More significantly, the SNP’s political stranglehold on Scotland has meant that robust challenge, on which effective government depends, has been largely absent. Little wonder Scottish business and civic society have been quiescent, wary of finding themselves offside with a powerful government holding for the foreseeable future the purse strings.

The Scottish Government is notionally run as a cabinet government. Does anyone doubt, however, that when it comes to key decisions only one view matters? Who thinks Fiona Hyslop is calling the shots on economic policy? Or Kate Forbes is the determining voice on tax rates? Or Jeanne Freeman is driving the response to COVID? And even John Swinney’s blushes are not spared when the latest screeching U-turn in education policy is required. Nicola Sturgeon – the micro-manager-in-chief – doesn’t just lead her government, she dominates it.

The most unintentionally revealing part of her testimony to the Holyrood Committee, investigating the Scottish Government’s botched handling of the complaints against Alex Salmond, was when she said her failure to report to civil servants the Salmond meeting was because she didn’t want them to feel under pressure to second-guess what her wishes might be. Too late First Minister! One suspects that divining Ms Sturgeon’s wishes – assisted no doubt by helpful steers from a tight, long-standing group of fiercely loyal political advisers – is a daily pre-occupation for all officials in this most presidential of administrations.

Nothing keeps government ministers on their toes more than the thought that voters have regular opportunities to throw them out. In recent years this regulating mechanism has in Scotland been almost entirely missing. The prospect in 2016 was purely theoretical and in 2021 seems unlikely too. The First Minister’s cautious handling of the COVID crisis has been rewarded with approval levels which Mother Theresa would have been happy with.

However, Scottish voters should be careful what they wish for. There is more than a whiff of ‘the state is me’ about Nicola Sturgeon’s barely contained irritability with having to spend eight hours at a committee accounting for her actions when there’s a pandemic to fight.

It’s not unknown for political leaders, in power for a long time, to come to view themselves as being indispensable. After 11 years in power Margaret Thatcher fleetingly wondered if she could remain Prime Minister to provide experienced leadership following Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, even if she was no longer heading up her party. She quickly dismissed the thought.

I must confess to a sneaking admiration for Ms Sturgeon. One can disagree profoundly with her politics whilst appreciating her professionalism and formidable skills as a politician and communicator. As an aide to David Cameron I used to sit in on many of his meetings with her. After Alex Salmond – the Downing Street joke was you should always check you still had all your fingers after shaking hands with him – she seemed by comparison more reliably straightforward.

The Government she leads, however, now seems tired and bereft of fresh ideas. Long gone are the heady days in November 2014 when the Scottish Parliament elected her First Minister.

Then she promised “a government that is bold, imaginative and adventurous”. She spoke of “a Scotland vigorous and determined in its resolution to address poverty, support business, promote growth and tackle inequality. These are the points against which my government will set its compass”. Yet a quick scan of the Scottish policy landscape suggests she’s lost her way.

Despite more powers over tax and welfare, poverty and income inequality in Scotland have risen on her watch. Drug deaths on a six-year rise – now at the highest levels since records began. The educational attainment gap widening. New business formation lagging behind the UK average. And before the pandemic hit, a Scottish economy growing persistently more slowly than the rest of the UK.

No-one will share more keenly than Nicola Sturgeon – parading the emotional intelligence and self-awareness her predecessor lacks – the pain of those let down by her government’s policy failings.

Her most fervent supporters hope that the almost universal popularity for her handling of the COVID crisis will provide the springboard for realising the independence dream. In reality, the reverse will be true. Another divisive independence referendum would shatter instantly the unity and solidarity Scotland has displayed throughout the pandemic and I suspect in her heart of hearts Nicola Sturgeon knows it.

It was Enoch Powell who said of Joe Chamberlain: “All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs”.

Nicola Sturgeon had the chance to rise above party politics, to reveal herself as a stateswoman brave enough to face down her party by telling it this home truth – that bringing together the country to heal after the COVID ordeal is more important than IndyRef2. But she’s blown it.

Her fate is to be just another tribal, machine politician, who squandered election majorities and the opportunities of her time in office to leave Scotland better off than she found it.

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