If revenge is a dish best served cold, Alex Salmond is dining in the deep freeze

The former First Minister's acquittal in the 2020 sex case infuriated Sturgeon's allies and helped fuel the drive to scrap jury trials.

I’m sure Nicola Sturgeon’s enthusiasm for abolishing juries had nothing whatever to do with the fact that in 2020 a jury found her bete noir Alex Salmond not guilty of 13 charges of attempted rape and sexual assault levelled at him by senior SNP politicians and members of her government.

Nor was the new First Minister, Humza Yousaf in any way influenced by his predecessor in promoting the Victim's. Witnesses and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill – legislation which has provoked an unprecedented rebellion by the Scottish legal profession, not a body of men and women renowned for their radicalism.

I am sure also that Scotland’s second most senior judge Lady Dorrian’s apparent enthusiasm for excluding juries from sexual offences like attempted rape has nothing whatever to do with the fact that she presided over the Salmond trial in which a jury of 8 women and 5 men found him not guilty on all counts. Such a suggestion would be a monstrous calumny.

Nor did the fact that the Crown Office has opened an investigation into perjury by Salmond's accusers have anything to do with the First Minister, Humza Yousaf, now trying to push though lifetime anonymity for “victims” in sexual offences under his bill, even when the jury finds them not to be victims at all. You are free to think differently of course, but never let it be said etc..

However, of one thing I am sure: had it not been for the jury's decision to acquit, the former First Minister of Scotland could have been jailed for the rest of his life. That landmark case forms a sinister backdrop to the deepening conflict over the most radical reform of the Scottish justice system in centuries.