Strident. Repeated. Confident and with more than a little petulance, Nicola Sturgeon tells us she has Done Nothing Wrong.

Not for her the usual refuge of politicians under pressure who assure us they have done nothing illegal. Such is Nicola Sturgeon’s confidence that she says “I am certain I have done nothing wrong”.

What stunning arrogance.

One of Nicola Sturgeon’s problems is that, surrounded for many years by an adoring cult and a largely unquestioning media, she became in her own eyes one of the most successful politicians in Europe. Humza Yousaf certainly thinks so too – the most admired and successful politician in the last few decades according to him. Poor old Angela Merkel, I thought she was really quite good.

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In her own words Nicola became the nation’s “Chief Mammy”. She knew what was good for us, she told us what to do and we had better do it – a sort of benevolent dictatorship. Tell somebody for long enough that they are simply wonderful and only the strongest characters can resist a growing feeling that, yes, these people must be right, I am wonderful.

Nicola Sturgeon did not have that strength of character.

Let’s leave aside for the moment whether anything illegal has gone on inside the SNP. There are questions to be answered and the police continue to investigate. We shall know in due course.

Let’s also leave aside her actual record as leader of the Scottish Government for many years. The performance of that government has been simply appalling. Higher taxes without better services, failures in education and health, suicide rates at European-leading levels of tragedy, gross ineptitude in transport, pathetic and costly picking of unnecessary fights with the UK Government over gender recognition, the deposit return scheme and much else.

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Let’s just focus on what she actually said which is that she is certain she has done nothing wrong.

Well I’m afraid she plainly has done a lot wrong.

If you lead any organisation – company, charity, school, council, government – in order to be able to claim you have done nothing wrong it is not good enough to make that assertion only on the basis that you have not taken active steps which have caused damage.

“Nothing wrong” requires rather more than that and the higher the public office, the greater the need to meet a higher standard. We cannot be blind to the valid point that this applies to Boris Johnson as much as it does to Nicola Sturgeon but the screeching certainty of her claim nonetheless jars.

To have done nothing wrong in high office outcomes must count. You must have governed well and to good effect. Your processes and procedures must be fair and open. You must tell the truth. You must not be so careless or reckless that what you say cannot be relied on. Above all you must accept that as a leader of an organisation you set its tone – how those within it act, whether they tell the truth, whether the organisation as a whole has integrity – these depend on effective leadership.

Nicola Sturgeon has failed these tests. All of them.

When Nicola Sturgeon decided as leader of the SNP that it was OK her husband remained its chief executive that was wrong and it doesn’t need hindsight to know that.

When she assured her party executive on a video which we can all see that the SNP’s finances had never been better and they should not talk otherwise, both of those things were wrong and she knew or ought to have known that.

When the SNP briefed a falsehood during its recent leadership campaign about how many members it had that was wrong. The leader creates the culture in which such things are done. With power comes responsibility.

When your husband quietly lends the SNP money without telling the regulator that he has done so within the proper time that is a wrong by an organisation you lead. The 'It’s Pete’s money and he can do what he wants with it' line of defence just doesn’t cut it.

There are wider wrongs too, not just of policy (though there are many of those) but of character.

Insulting a Parliamentary Committee by saying “I can’t recall” to awkward questions was wrong. Being apparently complicit in an operation to discredit Alex Salmond was wrong. High-jacking a Covid briefing to tell us that the jury who had dared not to find Alex Salmond guilty had made a mistake was wrong. Deliberately picking fights with the UK Government and not co-operating with UK initiatives which would have helped Scotland – they were wrong too.

The moral charge sheet is long. A little humility on the part of our former First Minster would not go amiss. After hubris, nemesis.