I see Scotland as the brain of the UK, with Wales as the soul and Northern Ireland as the heart. Though I like being English – our lovely language is second to none – we’re probably not the most sensible nation on earth, so I’d call us the sense of humour. Because of this, I’ve always thought that if I was a Scot, I’d probably be a separatist. It annoyed me intensely when during the referendum the likes of David Bowie (by then resident in the USA for many years) stuck his oar in, getting his mate Kate Moss to accept a Brit award for him and pass on the message ‘Scotland, stay with us!’ The BBC’s Scotland correspondent James Cook understandably snickered ‘David Bowie enters the #indyref debate via his “representative on earth” Kate Moss – so that’s not weird at all.’

She’s worst thing to happen to the health – moral and physical – of Scotland since the deep-fried Mars Bar

So it is as an admirer of Scotland, as well as a feminist and a free speech fan, that I’m glad to see the back of Nicola Sturgeon, the worst thing to happen to the health – moral and physical – of Scotland since the deep-fried Mars Bar.

Sturgeon was the ultimate trans-maid, selling out sisters for misters to the extent that a woman was charged under the Malicious Communications Act allegedly for tweeting an image of a suffragette ribbon. And Sturgeon’s henchman / then justice secretary, Humza Yousaf’s Hate Crime and Public Order Bill sought a new no ‘dwelling defence’ meaning that ‘wrong’ thoughts expressed inside a private residence could still be prosecuted.

How did a grifting scold like Nicola Sturgeon gain power over a nation so intellectually rigorous – which played such a great part in the actual Enlightenment – and keep it for almost a decade? By appealing to Scots’ patriotism and understandable resentment of Westminster rule. How did she lose power? By not knowing her people at all, as it turned out. By believing that just because she had been given some of the powers needed to create a McGilead, the Scottish people would be bovinely supine forever, happily repeating that ‘two plus two equals five’ if Big Sister told them it was so – or that women can have penises.

A non-conformist with a regrettable penchant for hyper-conformity, Sturgeon was so much about the process rather than the passion of politics that it’s somewhat surreal to hear that she was once a hot-blooded CND-supporting youngster. One of the joys of Tracy Ullman’s portrayal of Sturgeon as a megalomaniac whose desire for Scottish independence was just a front for a bid for world domination was the fact that in reality Sturgeon seemed so very prosaic.

The only time Sturgeon showed herself as truly human was when she was caught on camera celebrating Jo Swinson losing her seat. That’s why her resignation speech – shades of Saint Jacinda – seemed so insincere. She’s been a tireless dreadnought, banging the drum for The Cause since she was a teenager and now, all of a sudden, she’s finding it a bit tiring? All that ‘Och, I’m just a wee human thing at the end of the day’ blather feels like an insult to all of our intelligence, not just to that of the formidable Scots – especially coming just weeks after she told the BBC that she still had ‘plenty in the tank’. Something doesn’t add up – and I don’t just mean that missing 600K which went astray from the SNP coffers.

How many Scots will mourn her? Well, a giant conga line formed in Glasgow’s historic George Square a few hours after her resignation, waving bottles of bubbly and Union flags and chanting ‘Conga conga conga, Nicola’s no longer!’ which will have wounded this humourless narcissist. It’s not like she has a great track record to look back on; if someone presents as being efficient to the point of being a pocket calculator with a pixie cut, they’d better have the stats to back it up. Wages in Scotland have declined since Sturgeon took power, now forecast to drop to 92 per cent of the UK average – the lowest share on record since 1988. Scotland has the highest  percentage of drug deaths of any country in Europe, over 3.7 times the rate in the UK as a whole and four times that of its nearest competitor – but life expectancy all round fell dramatically under Sturgeon.

Why then do the commentariat often refer to her as one of the most effective politicians of her generation? If politics is the art of staying at the top of the greasy pole for the longest time while preaching to the choir, yes, she’s a political colossus. But in what must be measured as a shattering defeat, she has even bungled her whole raison d’être – Scottish independence – by parroting the insane mantra of mad transgenderism. If a politician can’t tell the truth about what a woman is, how can they be trusted not to lie about everything? And so backing for Scottish independence, which had been rising for two years to the end of 2022, fell last month after the Get Into Jail Free scandal – as did Sturgeon’s own personal rating, at long last, surely prompting her departure. Her vanity – despite that no-nonsense haircut – was ultimately so strong that she had to have blind devotion or nothing.

Despite the guff about wanting a nice wee rest, I wouldn’t be surprised if she hitched a ride on the gravy train to Brussels, where she’ll exorbitantly rewarded for being a thorn in the side of wicked England. Good riddance. Sturgeon has presided over the nannying of Scotland with her attempt to infantilise this proud nation. She increased the price of alcohol and planned to ban alcohol branding. She oversaw the most draconian lockdown for pubs and restaurants in the UK. She spurns public transport, preferring a chauffeur to ferry her between Edinburgh and Glasgow. She sought to impose a state guardian on every child in Scotland from before their birth until the age of 18 – thankfully, her Named Person’s scheme was struck down by the UK Supreme Court. Arrogant and paranoid, she lined up no successor and has prevented the only politician who could unite the independence movement, Joanna Cherry, from standing as SNP leader by exiling her to Westminster.

How such an intellectually rigorous and rebellious people as the Scots could have chosen to live under the Woke Stasi of Wee Jimmy Krankie for so long will baffle historians in years to come. But the good news – for Scots, for women, for the very principle of free speech – is that Sturgeon is gone. To quote another female politician, Margaret Thatcher, who Sturgeon hated but who in her isolation she increasingly resembled, ‘Rejoice!’. For this is a great defeat in the war against freedom – and a victory to be savoured before we return to the fray refreshed.