Can Alex Salmond give Britain the chop? But it was a victory that shocked even the victor. As constituency after constituency fell to his conquering SNP troops, including all of Scotland's cities, even Mr Salmond couldn't believe it. At one stage he told one of his hard-pressed minions in no uncertain terms - he has a nice line in Anglo-Saxon expletives - to check no fewer than four times when told that Glasgow Shettleston, arguably Britain's poorest constituency and Labour since forever, had been captured. It was last year's triumph that gave him what Mr Salmond says is his mandate to challenge the British state and Downing Street's ruling that it would be unlawful for him to conduct a referendum. He won 69 out of the 129 seats at Holyrood, something that was supposed to be impossible, even if it represented only a 45 per cent share of a 50 per cent turnout. In addition, he controls all of the parliament's important committees, and as if that wasn't enough, he couldn't resist also grabbing for the SNP the post of presiding officer, equivalent to that of the Commons Speaker. With all of the opposition parties humbled and forced to replace their leaders, those who wish to defeat him now need to find his Achilles heel. It will not be easy. Cliché or not, he is master of all he surveys. He has an almost Stalinist grip on his party, with no sign of internal dissent - a unique phenomenon, to my mind, in British politics - and with all of his internal critics either banished or bribed into silence by ministerial Mondeos. His front-line team are, for the most part, highly competent and even the potential PR disaster over the release of the Lockerbie bomber by his justice minister did not dent Mr Salmond's armour north of the border. He is a good, though not great, debater and depends upon a combination of ferocious personal attacks and a patronising, almost sneering, tone to deal with his opponents. Where he excels is with the broadcast media. A consummate television performer, especially with most London-based presenters, who treat him as they would a foreign potentate, he is a master of glib one-liners and cheeky-chappie quips. But he is no lightweight. Get him on to issues such as North Sea oil revenue and this former RBS economist and civil servant can tie anyone in arithmetical knots. On a personal level, too, Wee Eck - his long-time nickname - can prove hard to beat, easily slipping into "one of the lads" mode. He mixes easily with most people, and while not averse to the odd beer, is much happier with a decent claret. He is an ardent supporter of both the Scotland and Heart of Midlothian football teams - even wearing a "Jimmy" wig during one of the national side's matches abroad - and an enthusiastic golfer. A keen gambler, too, he'll happily wager on just about anything, and until he became First Minister was a regular horse racing tipster for a Glasgow newspaper. But he has always angrily denied rumours that he once ran up significant debts with the bookies. He can turn on the charm, too. When my teenage daughter and her pals brought their Philadelphia exchange students for a tour of Holyrood a year ago, Mr Salmond was not only happy to meet them but insisted on taking them up to his impressive office, with its views of Arthur's Seat, and posing for photographs with them. As a result, there are half a dozen US citizens who would cheerfully vote for him, given half a chance. If, to my mind, Alex Salmond doesn't always look entirely comfortable in the company of women, he dotes on and depends upon one woman - his wife, Moira, who is 17 years his senior. The couple met while working as civil servants in the old Department of Agriculture in Edinburgh and married in 1981, when he was 26. As David Torrance, his biographer, says: "It must have been a big decision for Salmond to make, not least in terms of family: by marrying a woman in her early forties he was more or less deciding that children would not be part of his life. But while these considerations would intrigue journalists and, indeed, biographers, it is difficult to reach any conclusion other than that Salmond was deeply in love with Moira and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Unlike most of his political contemporaries, especially Tony Blair and now Mr Cameron, Mr Salmond does not "use" his wife for PR purposes; there are no Christmas cards featuring the Salmonds; in fact, there are few photographs of Mrs Salmond at all. She spends most of her time at the couple's converted mill house in Aberdeenshire, whereas her husband is based on weekdays at Bute House, the First Minister's residence in Edinburgh's Georgian New Town. But together or not, Mr Salmond insists he couldn't do his job without the wit and style of his wife and he values greatly her advice, among which is her counsel not to take his work too seriously. That, however, is one bit of advice he appears to have ignored. He drives himself hard and his staff even harder. All in all, Alex Salmond may have prepared well for the fight of his life, but while he undoubtedly sees himself as some form of messianic figure, leading Scotland to what he calls "freedom," it is he who blinked first in this constitutional stand-off with London - by naming the date he wants his referendum to be held on, something he wasn't prepared to do yet. This over-confidence in his own abilities and often disastrous judgment caused him to be spectacularly wrong over issues such as the Scottish banks" collapse and his plan to get Scotland to match the "arc of prosperity" - the now bankrupt countries such as Ireland and Iceland. These traits, allied to an explosive temper and an incredibly thin skin, may yet lead to his ultimate undoing in what has become the Battle for Britain.