His government passed landmark legislation, including the abolition of university tuition fees, the scrapping of prescription charges and commitment to renewable energy.

Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond[4] was born at his parents' home at 101 Preston Road,[5] Linlithgow, West Lothian, Scotland, on 31 December 1954.

[19][20] After graduating in 1978, he entered the Government Economic Service (GES) as an assistant economist in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland, part of the now defunct Scottish Office.

[24] His conversion is generally credited to his then girlfriend, Debbie Horton, an English student from London, who was secretary of the St Andrews University Labour club.

[27] He was at this time still viewed as being firmly on the left of the party and had become a key ally of Jim Sillars, who joined him in the House of Commons when he won a by-election for the seat of Glasgow Govan in 1988.

To counter his frustration at having to sit in silence through what he claimed was an inappropriately political speech by Tony Blair at a charity lunch, he held up the bluff card as the Prime Minister began querying Scotland's economic prospects should independence occur.

He stood down as SNP leader in 2000, facing internal criticism after a series of high-profile fall-outs with party members,[39] and was replaced by his preferred successor John Swinney, who defeated Alex Neil for the post.

In the aftermath of the war, he lent support to the attempt of Adam Price, a Plaid Cymru MP, to impeach Tony Blair over the Iraq issue.

Salmond went further than many anti-war politicians in claiming that Blair's statements on the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were consciously intended to deceive the public.

[48] In order to concentrate on his new role as First Minister, Salmond stood down as the SNP group leader at Westminster and was replaced by Angus Robertson.

[55] Salmond had been First Minister for just over a month when a vehicle rammed the front entrance of the main terminal building at Glasgow Airport on 30 June 2007, the first terrorist attack in Scotland since the Lockerbie bombing incident in December 1988.

"[56] Salmond issued a statement regarding the attacks in Edinburgh, calling for "the need for vigilance and unity against the forces of terror and rightly praised the work of the emergency services".

[57] By the evening of 30 June, Salmond had attended an online conference discussion with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Gordon Brown and his governmental cabinet.

Salmond further pledged to continue the freeze of council tax across Scotland in order to establish a "social wage", as well as driving work forward to deliver the governments commitment to the abolition of bridge tolls, free concessionary travel, prescription charges and personal care.

[78] On 15 October, Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was the only candidate to stand for the leadership, and formally succeeded Salmond as SNP leader following the party's national conference in Perth on 14 November.

[81][82] My time as leader is nearly over, but for Scotland, the campaign continues and the dream shall never die.On 7 December 2014, Salmond announced that he would stand as the SNP candidate for the Westminster constituency of Gordon in the 2015 May election.

[85] After he declared his candidacy, he was described as a "bogeyman" (both by Lesley Riddoch[86] and by himself[87]), and was reportedly "demonised" by "Conservative propaganda" portraying Labour Party leader Ed Miliband "compliantly dancing to Salmond the piper's tune" after the election.

[88] During the election campaign, Salmond recorded in his diary: "The Tory candidate, Colin Clark, cuts an impressive figure but his politics are far too dry for this area.

"[92][93] In the 2017 British general election, Salmond's seat was widely watched as a potential Tory gain amid a nationwide backlash to Sturgeon's decision to call for a second independence referendum.

[104][3] On 30 August 2018, he launched a crowdfunding appeal to pay for the legal costs of seeking a judicial review into the fairness of the process by which the Scottish Government has handled the allegations.

Evans stated that the complaints the government had received in January 2018 had not been withdrawn, so the option of re-investigating them remained on the table, once the police probe into the allegations had run its course.

[115] Giving evidence in person in February 2021, Salmond claimed that senior figures in the Scottish Government and the SNP plotted to remove him from public life and to send him to prison.

"[119] Irish lawyer James Hamilton conducted a separate investigation into whether Sturgeon breached the ministerial code and concluded that she did not, with the caveat that: "It is for the Scottish parliament to decide whether they were in fact misled".

[152] Government officials in North Macedonia said that he had fallen ill and collapsed at the Inex Olgica Hotel at around 15:30 CEST, and was later pronounced dead at the scene; his body was sent for autopsy to determine the cause of death.

[154] Following the announcement of his death, flags at the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh were lowered to half mast upon the request of the Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone.

[156] His family paid tribute to him via the release of an official statement on 13 October, saying he was "a devoted and loving husband, a fiercely loyal brother, a proud and thoughtful uncle and a faithful and trusted friend", and vowed to continue his long–standing work and desire to achieve Scottish independence, citing his same words used when he resigned as first minister, "the dream shall never die".

Buckingham Palace issued a statement from King Charles III which read "my wife and I are greatly saddened to hear of the sudden death of Alex Salmond.

[161] The prime minister of the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer, said that Salmond "leaves behind a lasting legacy", citing his stature as a "monumental figure of Scottish and UK politics over 30 years".

[166] There had been pressure on the UK Government to draft in the Royal Air Force (RAF) in order to repatriate Salmond's body from North Macedonia,[167] which would cost an estimated £600,000.

His body returned back in Scotland at around 2pm GMT following the flights landing at Aberdeen Airport, in which his arrival was marked by members of his family and the acting leader of the Alba Party, Kenny MacAskill, with a lone piper playing as the coffin disembarked the plane.