Times Leader piece Salmond Fishing The former SNP leader may be more frozen out than welcomed in by London Post a comment Print Share via Facebook Twitter Google+ Published at 12:01AM, December 9 2014 In plotting his return to power at Westminster, Alex Salmond makes too many assumptions. Buoyed up by the popularity of the Scottish National party, which has gained almost 70,000 new members since the independence referendum, the former first minister is confident not only that he can win the constituency of Gordon in Aberdeenshire, overturning a Liberal Democrat majority of 6,780, but that he may hold the balance of power in the event of another coalition government. The path of politics is rarely as straightforward as that. Gordon will be no pushover. Although the veteran Sir Malcolm Bruce is standing down, the Liberal Democrat candidate, Christine Jardine, will fight on two fronts — the cuts in health and infrastructure that have followed seven years of council tax freezes by the SNP government, and the decisive 60 to 40 per cent rejection of independence by Aberdeenshire at the referendum. Quite where Mr Salmond hopes to recoup those votes is unclear. If, however, he is returned, there is the larger question of the part he intends to play in post-election negotiations. His ambitions are typically robust for a politician who has what is known in Scotland as “a guid conceit of himself.” That is to say he rarely underplays his role. With predictions that the SNP could return more than 20 MPs at the general election, he has already set out the conditions that his party would impose in any future deal. He has ruled out the Conservatives, but leaves open some form of partnership with Labour. His position would be demanding: “I would want the SNP to be able to force Labour to agree not to renew Trident in Scotland, devolve the setting of the minimum wage to Holyrood and agree to give Scotland some responsibility for its own immigration policy,” is his opening bid. In short, he would seek to impose on Labour a quasi-federal solution, as a convenient stepping stone to another vote on independence. The notion that Ed Miliband, however desperate for power, would agree to it, is fanciful. Fighting to retain the Labour party’s credibility in Scotland, the Labour leader knows that concessions on this scale would be tantamount to humiliation — and a sure sign in Scotland that the party had surrendered its once impregnable position as the natural party of government. Mr Salmond makes one other miscalculation. He imagines that he will be greeted with the same respect at Westminster he is accorded in Scotland. He underestimates the fear and suspicion that his brand of nationalism inspires, and the concern that many MPs have about the way he has sought to turn a clear-cut majority against independence into momentum for yet another referendum. Perhaps the most searching question to be asked about Mr Salmond is how he intends to treat the House of Commons if elected. He has said he wants to “rumble up” Westminster — that is, presumably, to make trouble. He has form. Suspended from the House in 1988 when he interrupted Nigel Lawson’s budget speech, he is a pastmaster at using the conventions of the house to draw attention to himself and his cause. Those parties whom he assumes will want to do business with him may well, on the contrary, wish to give him a wide berth. Being voted politician of the year, as he has just been, is no guarantee of a comfortable life.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 11:29:56 +0000
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