FEW people have thought the sudden death of Alex Salmond to be anything other than a loss to Scotland. Those who were close to him admired him flaws and all. Those who weren’t saw only the flaws. A couple of commentators seemed to be saying: How come Salmond failed to recognise my towering talent?

Undoubtedly, he was a prism through which many people viewed ­leadership ­qualities. When he led the SNP, he ­demonstrated a boldness which arguably they have failed to demonstrate since. The subsequent decision to create Alba was a mistake, in my view, but that’s for another day.

That boldness, that chutzpah, seems to me to have been replaced by an ­overabundance of caution. Then again, risk aversion is not peculiar to Scotland. In the United States, as the countdown to a most consequential election grows ever nearer the poll, many leaders are displaying a disinclination to take any chances.

READ MORE: Ruth Wishart: Keir Starmer takes 100 days to plummet to -33

Instead arguments are distilled down to how many people care about this issue and if we can afford to offend them in any way.

It would explain why Joe Biden (below) seems ­incapable of confronting Benjamin ­Netanyahu over everything from the lack of aid and food going into Gaza to the ­wholesale destruction of that territory and the appalling loss of civilian life.

In the USA the Jewish vote was usually a Democrat one.

It would explain the minute calculations taken by Team Harris as they criss cross the so-called swing states. Like First Past The Post in Britain, there’s only a few hundred thousand votes which will actually affect the result. Democracy in action it’s not.

Not least as at least two “losers” have ­actually won the popular vote.

It would explain the selection of the ­cuddly, but previously anonymous Tim Walz as a running mate. He ticked the ­Midwest box and that seemed to matter more than personal firepower.

Only the odious Donald Trump is ­lauded by his fan club for “telling it like it is”, for which read “tell it like he’d prefer it to be”. His semi-detachment from reality has ­become ever more apparent, and his ­relationship to the truth, always shaky, has gone beyond any recognisable pale.

And it seems to be contagious if the ­public utterances of JD Vance, author of the “childless cat lady” jibe are anything to go by.

Yet that very bluster and dystopian view of the American world seems to have attracted the most unlikely bedfellows – who would have thought the fervent ­evangelicals would happily stand with a convicted rapist and self-confessed groper of womankind?

READ MORE: We must remember the lessons from Barlinnie’s radical Special Unit

It’s not just Yorkshire where there’s “nowt as queer as folk.”

I mean you can understand, if not ­forgive, those prone to believing any and every conspiracy theory, but who would have believed pre-Trump, that an ­orchestrated trashing of Congress could take place?

Even the Brexit mob which turned up to the Houses of Parliament with ­monotonous regularity contented ­themselves with trashing MPs with whom they took issue. They were angry, they were ugly, to be sure, but the bricks and mortar remained intact.

Yet back here in the UK, the ­Conservatives and the Labour ­Party both seem to have plumped for ­leaders who have little grasp of politics.

Neither the soon-to-disappear Rishi ­Sunak nor the ­charisma-free Keir ­Starmer appear to ­understand the basics of their trade.

It’s said – and there’s a lot of truth in it – that Starmer’s main attraction to the ­electorate was not being a Conservative. It would certainly explain the Scottish voting pattern last July.

The bromance between Starmer (below) and Scottish leader Anas Sarwar has been much trumpeted, but you do wonder what Anas really thinks of his boss when the cameras and the scribes are elsewhere. From what I hear, the doorsteps are awash with buyers evincing much regret.

There is, in truth, a serious shortage of political stardust around. While Ian ­Murray might be greatly preferable to Alister Jack – not a high bar, to be fair – no heather is in any danger of being set alight. It took a renegade like the late ­Margo MacDonald to rummle up the troops, or an orator like the late Alex ­Salmond.

John Swinney – by common consent a decent man – suffers from the same lack of star power. It’s true that nobody is seen to nod off when he speaks, but nobody rushes to the barricades either.

Eck, for all his personal weaknesses, had glamour and inspiration in spades. Even folks who didn’t much care for him, wouldn’t tune out when he fashioned one of those carefully crafted soundbites.

His last – “Scotland is a country, not a county” – was emblematic of his house style. His mastery of the snappy slogan was apparent to the end.

He was, in the jargon, a big beast and there’s gey few of them visible these days. Donald Dewar and Alistair Darling have both gone and those allegedly “one-nation” Tories like Kenneth Clarke have long since scurried to the upper house.

And isn’t it passing odd how many of these peers – staunchly opposed to the Lords in their day – become enamoured with it big time when they’ve been admitted upstairs themselves? Or maybe not.

I note from the public presses that ­Gordon Brown has been lauded as a greater contributor to the national good than Salmond. There’s little doubt that he was a serious man, serious about his politics. Yet his time at the top of the UK political tree was relatively brief.

On his day and on his game, he could certainly be a powerful voice, but his view of how a post-devolution game should be played never really took root. His ­latest contribution – ­commissioned by ­Starmer – rather ­disappeared without a trace when the ­manifesto came to be written.

On the credit side, he never sought or took a peerage himself, and his role in addressing the aftermath of the global crash in 2008 was both underplayed and misrepresented by the Tories who came to power a couple of years later, albeit in coalition.

AS I write, the chief executive of the SNP has just handed back his jotters and so that party will require to find a Mr or Ms Fixit in double quick time before the onset of the Scottish election barely two years hence.

My prediction, for what it’s worth, is that both the SNP and Scottish Labour will have more of a fight on their hands than is currently believed. Chancellor ­Rachel Reeves will have to find more than a few rabbits in the bottom of her hat on October 30 to convince the voters that ­Labour are in their corner.

Meanwhile, the SNP will need to ­persuade their erstwhile supporters back into the fold. And also persuade those who’ve decamped to other parties that the SNP government can both govern well and be serious about pursuing a ­credible route to independence.

Their problem of course is that they’ve been around so long that there’s not much likelihood of some unexpected star turn being unearthed in the ­ Holyrood ­chamber.

In addition, to which there will be not a few ex-MPs pondering the thought that a berth on their doorstep might be quite a seductive prospect.

What is not at all likely is that someone of Alex Salmond’s ilk will emerge and ­enter the fray.

Whatever folk might think of the ­former first minister, there’s not very many of him to the pound.

If there is such a thing as one of a kind, Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond very probably qualifies.