Alex Salmond, the former first minister of Scotland who for decades championed Scotland’s independence from the U.K. and nearly accomplished it, has died. He was 69. Salmond, who was one of the most divisive figure in British politics at the turn of the century and who as the then leader of the Scottish National Party took Scotland

Alex Salmond, who died on Saturday aged 69, was for years the figurehead of Scottish independence, a wily political operator who divided opinion as he took the nationalist movement from