My first meeting with Alex Salmond was not propitious.

It was early in 1978. I was working as the features editor of another newspaper. Mr Salmond arrived at the editorial offices with a small delegation of radical nationalist students demanding to speak to someone senior.

I was not particularly senior, but I met him and his colleagues. They had some forceful points to make about the paper's coverage of the SNP. Mr Salmond was somewhat flippant, but quick and smart. He made some very pertinent observations.

Since then I've watched his career with fascination. There was the bravery he showed when he alone disrupted Nigel Lawson's appalling, cynical 1988 Budget speech in the Commons. There was the way he steadily transformed himself from being the precocious young radical into an effective and far-sighted strategist, a political leader of subtlety and finesse.

When he worked at the Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters, sympathetic executives let him spend a lot of time mastering many aspects of Scottish financial and encomic policy. He has a superb brain, and he can debate with world-class economists on equal terms.

Some folk have found him smug. Maybe he once was. In recent years he has become personable and mellow. He and his wife Moira have hosted many receptions and dinners at Bute House.

I've been at a few of those and know them to be a warm and gracious couple, who take a genuine interest in their guests and have a wonderful gift of making people feel at ease.

The SNP has made remarkable progress. It has transformed itself from being an irrelevant party of protest into a credible party of government in not much more than a generation. Many people have worked on this project, but Mr Salmond must take most of the credit. In office he has been confident and assured. Scotland has been well governed over the past few years. The folk who govern at Westminster could learn a lot from him.

In some ways he is like Harold Wilson, or Iain Macleod; because he is so sharp in argument, so quick in response, people can think he is just a bit too clever. Lacks humility, it's sometimes said. Far too pleased with himself. Well, he has a lot to be pleased about.

Of course he will not be pleased right now. But he has led us to the point where more than one million Scots voted for us to become an independent nation. Not enough of us; in that sense he has failed. But to have even got us to this point is a towering achievement.

And incidentally, as loyal readers of this newspaper will recall, he was a much better racing tipster than Robin Cook.