Nicola Sturgeon will leave office next week with a claim to be one of Scotland’s top ambassadors.
In eight years as First Minister - the longest anyone has held the post - she helped put her country on the map.
She raised Scotland’s profile on the global stage by opposing Brexit, challenging Boris Johnson’s handling of the pandemic and demanding a bold deal at Cop26 in Glasgow.
Her predecessor Alex Salmond’s Government was ideologically flexible and rooted in populism.
Her brand - progressive, feminist, centre-left - was different and she became a Western European version of ex New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern.
A sign of her reach, and influence, was when former US President Donald Trump gloated about her resignation:
“Good riddance to failed woke extremist Nicola Sturgeon of Scotland!
“This crazed leftist symbolises everything wrong with identity politics.”
The first female First Minister was probably delighted to attract barbs from a politician who represents everything she loathes.
However, it is her patchy domestic legacy that will define her legacy.
Sturgeon is the most electorally successful politician in Scotland’s history. She fought eight elections and won them all.
But winning elections is only half of the equation as it is what you do with power that counts.
On the plus side, the £25 a week Scottish Child Payment - delivered through devolved social security powers - was a huge boost for low income families.
The UK Government cut Universal Credit by £20 a week and the SCP was morally right and an antidote to Tory cruelty.
The funding of 1,140 hours of free childcare for 3 and 4 year olds was also a godsend for parents. Childcare costs can ravage family budgets and the support was transformative.
Despite these gains, Sturgeon failed to move the dial when it came to eroding the massive inequalities that hold so many Scots back.
Figures published on Thursday showed that child poverty levels increased on her watch, from 23 per cent to 24 per cent.
The number of Scots living in poverty also reached 1.1m adults, children and pensioners - the highest for almost 20 years.
Whatever way you cut it this is a huge failure that no amount of political spin can justify.
The SCP is a good policy, but it was too little, too late. Scrapping council tax, which she was never serious about, would have made a bigger dent on poverty levels.
Her promise to overhaul schools policy for the benefit of children from deprived backgrounds also proved to be hype.
In the 2016 Holyrood election campaign, Sturgeon said raising attainment in schools would be the “number one priority” of her Government.
Seven years later, the gap has barely narrowed and the life chances of children are still determined by their postcodes.
And while the First Minister can blame record NHS waiting lists on the pandemic, many of the problems with the health service pre-dated covid.
On Sturgeon’s watch, Scotland continues to have the highest drugs death rate in Europe - a badge of shame.
She said her Government took its “eye off the ball”, but this candid admission will provide little comfort to the families whose lives were wrecked by ministerial failure.
Other low points include the ferries debacle, a flawed national care service proposal and a state-run energy firm that never got off the ground.
The systemic under-funding of councils also put huge pressure on the services that low income Scots depend on.
Sturgeon’s modest valedictory speech was a sign of the challenges she faced with delivery over the last eight years.
She cited individual policy triumphs and rightly claimed her time in office would inspire women and girls, yet there was no broader narrative of change to which she could refer.
Clement Attlee’s Labour Government created the NHS and the welfare state in six years.
Tony Blair’s first term saw the introduction of the minimum wage, a multi-billion pound tax credit system and devolution across the UK.
Sturgeon’s reign marked no such radical break from the past.
Part of the problem was Brexit and the implications of unwanted constitutional vandalism foisted upon Scotland.
Had the UK voted Remain in 2016, Sturgeon may well have had a greater focus on the domestic inequalities that disfigure society and blight life chances.
But Brexit breathed life into the independence movement and rewired Sturgeon’s political priorities around the pursuit of indyref2.
A post-Remain independence strategy could have focused on parking a referendum while trying to build support for a revamped independence prospectus.
Leaving the European Union made a referendum central to Sturgeon’s agenda and triggered seven years of process rows about dates and the UK Government refusing a joint agreement.
The end result for Sturgeon was failure - the Supreme Court backed the UK Government, her ‘de facto’ referendum plan was mocked and she leaves office with little progress made towards her key political objective.
However, Sturgeon was a progressive counterpoint to a succession of dreadful Tory Prime Ministers.
This became evident during the pandemic - the defining moment of her time in office - when her astute communication skills provided comfort to Scots during this dark period.
Some of the mistakes made in the early days of the pandemic were awful, such as those relating to care homes, but her calm professionalism was in contrast to the lies and law-breaking of Johnson.
Success, though, cannot be defined in relation to your political opponents.
Sturgeon had more powers at her disposal than any of her predecessors to improve the lives of the most disadvantaged Scots.
She is a remarkable politician who enjoyed success as First Minister, but history should record her time in office as a missed opportunity.
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