Goodbye Alex Salmond we owe you so much!

For we are now invigorated, enlightened, empowered and can’t wait for the journey to start again.

There can’t be many out there who would disagree when I say this referendum has been the most compelling, engaging and exciting political contest these isles have witnessed.

What a fantastic journey these past two years have been.

Who said politics was boring? This has changed all that for ever.

People are now empowered. They know they can effect change, that their vote really does count and that only by taking part can you hold our politicians to account.

And who should we thank for this collective feeling of empowerment? Our First Minister Alex Salmond, the greatest political leader this country has ever had.

I felt sick at the result, gutted that we had at the last minute fallen under the spin and spells of the Warlocks of Westminster. But I was devastated to hear the news that Alex was stepping down.

The whole referendum contest has been brilliant, it has filled me with an immense sense of pride, but if it were not for Alex we would not have had this political rollercoaster to jump aboard.

He shaped a small political fringe party, the SNP, into one of huge national significance and governance.

He made many of us believe in nationhood and gave us a referendum in which to make our own choice of what kind of nation we wanted to be.

His government proved against all the odds that it could govern with a social conscience free prescriptions, free education and free child care, for example and for all that and more we should thank him and wish him well.

His leadership will be sorely missed by a great many friend and foe alike. And I really do hope that he doesn’t disappear into the Banff and Buchan sunset but instead uses his energy, knowledge and political skill to help push this nation to the top of the summit and have us rid of those lying chancers in Westminster.

You would be a complete fool to think the fight for independence is over. Far from it it has only just begun. But it would be so much better to have had Alex at the helm especially now the ‘vow’ by the Three Stooges of extra powers is unravelling faster than my mums knitting!

Yes, the Devo Max pledge is a promise that seems to be blowing away in the autumn breeze like one of the many discarded electioneering leaflets.

A promise that if broken in any way will make this week’s victory so hollow it will have an echo, the reverberations of which will not only shake the Scottish electorate into demanding a new referendum but also destroy the very cornerstones of power that they hold so dear.

Better Together? They’d better deliver . . . and pronto.

The undeniable and, for more than 1.5 million Scots and possibly hundreds of thousands of last minute NO voters, unpalatable fact is that Better Together’s victory now seems to have been won on the strength of an undeliverable pledge.

If that is the case and admittedly my nerves are frayed, my emotions high and my judgement a little suspect I will be unrelenting in my quest to have every last one of them run out of office. And I imagine many would join me.

For we are now invigorated, enlightened, empowered and can’t wait for the journey to start again.

So thank you, Alex Salmond, for giving us all the ticket to ride it was magic. And if you ain’t going to sit up point you are welcome to sit at the back with the rest of us.

Nelson Mandela once said: “Our march to freedom is irreversible. We must not allow fear to stand in our way”.

I couldn’t agree more, and next time (and we will get a next time) I have no doubt we should remember that it was a ‘Black Bitch’ a man fae Lith’gae who mapped our route and set us safely on our way.