ALEX SALMOND suffered his first electoral defeat after a successful 30-year career at Westminster and Holyrood.

It took him from a young, up-and-coming SNP MP to the party leader who backed devolution and then led the party into government before winning a historic majority at Holyrood and coming within touching distance of independence in 2014.

In his career he became undoubtedly the most successful leader of the SNP, before he handed over the reins to Nicola Sturgeon in 2014.

Mr Salmond’s latest two-year stint at Westminster came to an end last night when he was defeated by Tory Colin Clark, in the Gordon constituency in the north east of Scotland.

Mr Salmond, who famously returned as SNP leader in 2004 having left Holyrood for Westminster four years earlier, has not said what his future holds following the defeat.

He said politics has not seen the last of him.

Mr Salmond, who is fond of using Scottish literary quotes, said: “You’ve not seen the last of my bonnet and me,” from the Walter Scott poem Bonnie Dundee, about a Jacobite leader.

The Tory revival also claimed SNP deputy leader and the party’s Westminster leader, Angus Robertson; Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh and chief whip Mike Weir.

Mr Salmond reflected on the losses of the senior SNP figures.

He said: “The SNP has lost a number of fine parliamentarians this evening, that is a grievous blow for us.

“But overall results show the SNP will win a majority of the seats in this country and a majority of the votes.”

The former SNP leader said that it was a surge in Labour support down to Jeremy Corbyn that helped the Tories take seats from the SNP.

He added: “I don’t think it was the referendum opposition of the other parties which cost the SNP seats at the end of the day, I think it was a late recovery in Labour Party fortunes which was based on people’s assessment of Corbyn’s performance during the campaign – many of those people would be Yes supporters, incidentally.”

The other big casualty was Angus Robertson, who the SNP had promoted as the “real opposition leader” in the House of Commons.

Mr Robertson had been the MP for Moray for 16 years, having first won the seat in 2001 and made it one of the safest in the country for the SNP.

He was elected Deputy Leader of the party just last year.

Mr Robertson lost to the Conservatives’ Douglas Ross, who is also an MSP and a SFA Premier league referee.

Mr Ross overturned a majority of more than 9000 to take the seat. He won by 22,637 votes to 18,478.