SO that’s that then. A final flurry of questions, a few accusations, a few denials, a call for kindness, and Nicola Sturgeon’s last ever First Minister’s Questions was over. The most remarkable 3,046 days of modern Scottish politics has just a matter of hours now to run. By Monday afternoon, it will all be over.

Faced with some fierce criticism from the opposition at Holyrood, Ms Sturgeon pointed out there had been eight elections in Scotland while she was First Minister and the SNP had won every one of them.

She might also have drawn attention to the remarkable fact – extraordinary for modern politics – that she will leave office with a net-positive rating; the most recent polling shows a favourability rating of plus-eight.

Not only is this unusual, particularly after a long period in office, it demonstrates that Nicola Sturgeon has always been more popular than the SNP because even those who do not ordinarily support the party are still able to recognise her abilities.

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And her abilities are considerable. We saw them in the early days of her career when she was rising through the ranks under her mentor Alex Salmond. We saw them during the 2014 referendum when the Yes campaign went from apparently no-hope to seemingly almost-there. And we saw them from Ms Sturgeon as First Minister, particularly during the pandemic.

She worked hard during the crisis, she could genuinely empathise, she could communicate well and, even though the coronavirus outcomes in Scotland weren’t all that different from the rest of the UK, her efforts were appreciated by most Scots, even those who did not appreciate her ambitions on independence. And all of it happened against the backdrop of a UK Government led by Boris Johnson: the behaviour in Bute House, always, was a striking contrast to the behaviour in Number 10.

There is also no doubting – before, during and after the pandemic – that Ms Sturgeon was, and is, guided by a commitment to equality and fairness. Her bill on self-identification for trans people may be mired in crisis and there was a failure to properly accommodate the potential effect on women’s rights, but she led by example with her approach and attitude towards the LGBT community.

She was also an example of humanity when it came to the question of immigration, which again served as a noticeable contrast to the nasty rhetoric often heard at Westminster. All of this matters in creating a Scotland – independent or not – that is more inclusive, welcoming and progressive. It’s significant that, whoever succeeds Ms Sturgeon, they will either be the second female First Minister or the first from an ethnic minority. Scotland continues to progress.

Ms Sturgeon does acknowledge that she’s made mistakes – during the last First Minister’s Questions, she said there were several things she would do differently (although she declined to name them). But even here, it is perhaps a measure of her considerable political skills and talent for communication that crises that would have brought down other leaders in other countries failed to do so for Ms Sturgeon.

It is important to recognise, though, that her skills go beyond a talent for common-touch oratory and handling tricky political interviews – there are real achievements too. Free tuition fees. Free prescriptions. Progress on free childcare. The legislation on domestic abuse. We may also be starting to see the positive effects of minimum alcohol pricing. Those are policies Ms Sturgeon can look back on with satisfaction.

There are also positives to be seen on the economy and the efforts to make it stronger and greener. Obviously, the cost-of-living crisis, the pandemic, Brexit, and other global factors such as the war in Ukraine have taken their toll in Scotland as they have elsewhere, but exports are growing and greenhouse gas emissions are falling. The outlook on foreign investment is also looking bright, thanks in no small part to the good work of the Scottish Government’s inward investment and trade agency Scottish Development International.

In other respects, the judgment on Ms Sturgeon’s record must be harsher. On education for example, the First Minister once said that she wanted to be judged on that issue more than any other and that is what Scots will surely do. The latest statistics on attainment – one of the key problems Ms Sturgeon said she would tackle – show that the gap (a better word might be gulf) between the achievements of pupils in the least deprived areas and their peers in the most deprived areas is wider than it was in 2018. Attainment in both maths and reading has also been falling on the SNP's watch and we cannot even be sure there is hope for the future: the OECD has said the Scottish Government has no “identified cycle of policy review” to ensure best practice. The report card could not be much worse.

The record on poverty is just as dispiriting. Undoubtedly, the Scottish Child Payment is a step forward – it’s a policy Ms Sturgeon has mentioned several times when looking back on her record and understandably so: after being extended and raised, some 400,000 children are now eligible for the support. But just hours before Ms Sturgeon’s final First Minister’s Questions, the latest government figures also showed that a quarter of all Scotland’s children are living in relative poverty. It is a picture not of progress but of stagnation, and governmental failure.

The outlook on health after eight years of Ms Sturgeon’s leadership is equally grim. On drugs, Scotland has by far the worst death rate of any country in Europe and the question must be whether the lack of investment in rehab facilities is largely to blame. Like the Scots who live in the most deprived parts of the country, Scots with recent experience of A&E or waiting lists may also be asking what the First Minister’s legacy really is. Backlogs have soared since the pandemic and some of those who can afford to are seeking private treatment. Others must wait or turn up at A&E in desperation and wait for longer than patients ever have before. Hospitals and schools are a central test of any government’s performance and the Scottish Government under Ms Sturgeon has been failing that test.

Scots will care about other issues too of course. The people who live and work on the islands for example are right to be outraged by the continuing debacle of the ferries. As Ms Sturgeon departs, there will also be some Yes campaigners who will be wondering why support among the general public is still broadly where it was in 2014. Equally, there will be some who are inclined to vote No who will argue that Ms Sturgeon might have achieved more in government had she been less focused on Scottish independence.

But even Ms Sturgeon’s fiercest critics should acknowledge her abilities. As her era draws to a close, down at Westminster Boris Johnson is battling to save his career from an ignominious end and it is a sign of Ms Sturgeon’s achievements that she out-lasted not only Mr Johnson but three other Prime Ministers. But it’s more than that. Scotland is still bitterly divided over the issue of the constitution and it is arguably further away from being resolved than it was when Ms Sturgeon took over. But, even though she still has a few hours to go and it’s early days for a definitive judgment, it is right to say that Nicola Sturgeon has been one of the pre-eminent Scottish politicians of her generation and for good reason. It’s been a remarkable 3,046 days and she has been an extraordinary politician. Her successor has an extremely hard act to follow.