The coronavirus outbreak ensured that the sensational trial of Alex Salmond was mostly kept off the front pages.
The pandemic will also guarantee that the consequences of that trial – the former first minister of Scotland’s acquittal on all 13 sexual and indecent assault charges – will be postponed.
But whether we have to wait 12 weeks or 12 months, there will be consequences, of that we can be certain.
As Salmond emerged from the High Court in Edinburgh, there were no smiles, though the verdict must have brought immense relief that he would not be spending the next few years in Saughton Prison, and that his name had been cleared officially.
Instead there was anger, bitter recrimination and a threat. In a moment he must have dreamed about for the past two “nightmare” years, he vowed to take vengeance on those whom, he claims, had tried to destroy him.
“There is certain evidence that I would have liked to have seen led in this trial but, for a variety of reasons, we were not able to do so. Those facts will see the light but it won’t be this day.”
The pandemic must put everything on hold, including Salmond’s pledge to get even, but there was no mistaking his fury.
And in a chilling portent for his party, that fury will be visited on his enemies within the SNP. Part of his defence had insisted that the accusations against him, by nine women, were “deliberate fabrications for a political purpose”.
The splits in the nationalist movement, already evident before and during the trial, are going to erupt and, despite the denouement being delayed because of Covid-19, the fallout could end careers. Not any old careers but, if the Salmond camp gets its way, that of our current most senior politician, his successor and one time protégé, Nicola Sturgeon.
One of Salmond’s allies, the SNP MP for East Lothian and former Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, tweeted minutes after the verdict, “resignations now required”.
Another pal, SNP MP Joanna Cherry, said the way the Scottish Government had handled the complaints against Salmond before they came to court, raised “serious questions”.
The first minister, already facing a Holyrood inquiry and an external inquiry into whether she broke the ministerial code, is in the firing line.
In due course, said Cherry, the inquiries before the Scottish Parliament “must be allowed to complete their work”.
“There should also be an independent inquiry into how the SNP dealt with these allegations and an inquiry into our internal complaints procedure,” she added.
The gauntlet has been laid down: Sturgeon will pay for apparently attempting to ruin (which she denies) the man who spearheaded the Scottish independence cause for a generation.
For those of us who want to see the nationalists undermined, for the sake of preserving the union, an internecine war of these proportions should be welcomed. And maybe in normal circumstances it would be, but we transcended normal in the UK more than a week ago.
For the time being, we need leadership and a steady hand on the tiller, and where it comes from is beyond partisan reproach. As it happens, we are being led quite ably, given the challenges, by Sturgeon. Despite herself, she has managed to rise above all her political prejudices to work with a Conservative PM, as far as we can tell, without rancour.
Sturgeon attends Cobra meetings, via video link, with Boris Johnson and his cabinet and, apart from one early attempt to set a separate agenda in Scotland, seems to be operating in tandem with Westminster advice.
In short, she is putting the interests of her countrymen and women before her own political desires – the only talk recently of a second independence referendum was that it would not be taking place this year.
This change of tune could perhaps only have been brought about by a crisis of the magnitude of the coronavirus.
But it would be unfair not to credit Sturgeon with responding in statesman-like fashion – not all leaders have shown they are up to the job in the past few weeks (see Donald Trump’s recent press conferences for ample proof of that).
If, before the pandemic, her skills had been deployed in the service of her party, now they are undoubtedly being put to good use for Scotland.
Salmond and his cronies are not stupid enough to pick a fight with her now, but they are unlikely to let her off the hook in the long run.
She may decide to quit before then, her lifetime’s ambition abandoned. But she can hold her head high because whatever her foes say about her, she will be remembered as the nationalist leader who, instead of breaking her country apart chose, at its time of need, to hold it together.
