Alex salmond

Peter McKay’s diary: Is Kate and William’s Scottish trip a pro-union initiative?

Having dampened local republican ardour during their recent tour of New Zealand and Australia, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visit thinking-about-breaking-away Scotland next week. They’ll tour Glenturret Distillery near Crieff, Perthshire, next Thursday, to ‘bottle their own Glenturret whisky’, if you please. Sounds like a pro-union royal initiative, but what will First Minister Alex Salmond have to say? He claims he’d like the Queen to continue as Scotland’s head of state, although some of his supporters disagree. When HM said in her letter to the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly last week that she prays everyone ‘will work together for the social good of Scotland’, whatever the outcome of

Scotching a myth: Scotland is not as left-wing as you think it is

Alex Salmond and David Cameron have more in common than a shared appreciation for Andy Murray’s tennis. Not, of course, that you would ever persuade either of them to admit that. At the very least, their supporters are more alike than either man would like you to believe. A new survey commissioned by Dundee University’s Five Million Questions project confirms as much. On a range of issues SNP supporters are as close, or closer, to Tory voters as they are to Labour voters: [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/M9xAk/index.html”] This will not surprise diehard leftists, of course. If the First Minister was ever a socialist he ceased to be a comrade long ago and

Rising Tory, Hidden Danger: David Cameron is Doing Too Much Too Well

The British economy is growing. Not before time you might say. Be that as it may, there is a breath of summer in the air after a long winter. The quickening recovery has the Tories in jauntier spirits than for some time. The polls are closing. The Conservatives are within the margin of error and though the odds may remain it is no longer utterly fanciful to think they might remain the largest party at Westminster next year. What ho and what larks, good news is all around. Except in the north. Always the contrary north. A chill wind blows from North Britain and the message it bears should warn

Alex Salmond receives a lesson from the school of foreign policy hard knocks

Look: Alex Salmond’s indulgent appraisal of Vladimir Putin’s record was foolish and naive and all too revealing but let’s not lose the heid. Scotland, even an independent Scotland, is not going to be run by  McKGB and Mr Salmond’s fondness for wealthy businessmen is not really comparable to the kleptocracy that’s run Russia this century. Still, it is a news story and a legitimate one. Tinfoil Nationalists were very upset yesterday. Salmond was being “smeared” by, er, being quoted. GQ, clearly part of the pan-Unionist BritNat propaganda media machine, had “leaked” excerpts of their interview with the First Minister to undermine, eclipse or otherwise divert attention from a speech Mr Salmond was giving

Brothers in arms — Ukip and the SNP are singing the same song

You don’t mean a thing if your seat ain’t a swing. As this saying goes, political campaigning in safe seats is usually a thankless task — unless you are Nigel Farage. Last week, he managed to pack out The Sage concert hall in ultra-safe Labour Gateshead for Ukip’s biggest ever-public meeting. By going back to the simple idea of touring the country (even the sceptical parts) and giving speeches, Farage is appealing directly to the voters left behind by the other parties. He told the 1,200-odd assembled crowd of my fellow Geordies: ‘We are here to say that Labour used to stand up for the people in this region, but

Alex Massie

If Ed Miliband is the Union’s saviour then the Union is doomed

With apologies to John Rentoul, Can Ed Miliband save the Union? is a question to which the answer is God help us all. I admit to a blind spot vis a vis the Labour leader: Looks like Gussie Fink-Nottle, thinks like a Marxist Madeline Bassett. Clever enough in a droopy kind of way but, ultimately, a gawd-help-us kind of fellow. I wasn’t very impressed last time Mr Miliband came to Scotland and so I wasn’t inclined to be impressed by his most recent trip to Glasgow. Which is dandy because I wasn’t. I dare say Miliband’s belief that Scottish independence would be a bad idea – for Scotland and the rest of

Alex Massie

Alex Salmond’s strange – but revealing – admiration for Vladimir Putin

What to make of Alex Salmond’s qualified admiration for Vladimir Putin? The First Minister, interviewed for the forthcoming issue of GQ, declared he admires “certain aspects” of the Russian President’s record. Asked for his views on Putin, Salmond told Alastair Campbell that: “Well, obviously, I don’t approve of a range of Russian actions, but I think Putin’s more effective than the press he gets I would have thought, and you can see why he carries support in Russia. “[…] He’s restored a substantial part of Russian pride and that must be a good thing. There are aspects of Russian constitutionality and the inter-mesh with business and politics that are obviously

Can Ed Miliband save the Union?

When Ed Miliband goes to Scotland and declares that ‘It is Labour that’s got to win this referendum’ it is a statement of political reality as much as it is braggadocio. The Tories have only one MP north of the border and the Liberal Democrats are the fourth party in the Scottish parliament. If this vote is to be won, Labour—as by far the largest Unionist party—will have to get the No camp over the line. Ed Miliband’s decision to take the entire shadow Cabinet to Glasgow last week was meant to show that UK Labour is now engaging fully in this battle. Miliband himself thinks that he has come

As the Yes side rises in the polls, Scotland prepares for a Neverendum

I suspect I might be one of the Scottish journalists Iain Martin considers keen to make a melodrama from the independence referendum. Ten weeks ago I warned in this magazine that Alex Salmond could well lead Scotland to independence. Stuff and nonsense some folk said then. Well, perhaps. But nothing that has happened since has persuaded me I was wrong.  Sure, the polls still show the No side leading but the general picture is clear: the Yes side are closing the gap. Of course there’s no law demanding that current trends continue indefinitely but, nevertheless, these are nervous times for the Unionist cause. And for good reason. Consider the poster at

Isabel Hardman

Alex Salmond’s reassuring St George’s Day address

St George’s Day is one of those festivals that politicians are particularly earnest about, for fear someone accuse them of being ashamed of England. But today’s most interesting pointed St George’s Day celebration comes from a man more accustomed to suggesting that Englishness is something he is quite separate from. Alex Salmond is hopping across the border to give a speech in Carlisle. The SNP leader wants to reassure English people on St George’s Day that they can still be chums with the Scots. They’re not going to become surly dragons after independence. Instead, Salmond will say Scots and English people will still cross that border to work and to

Andrew Marr’s diary: Ruins on Crete and a spat with Alex Salmond

A week away in Crete: I’ve come for the archaeology and culture — little patches of Minos, ancient Greece, Byzantium and the Venetian Republic are scattered around this most southern sentinel of Europe. It hasn’t gone quite as I’d hoped; when it comes to monuments, the Greek rule seems to be ‘close early, close often’. But I’ve much enjoyed the food, a just-swimmable sea, and the benign, gracious hospitality of the locals. At first sight, like much of the eastern Mediterranean, Crete appears to be a matriarchy. Stern women in black still dominate village squares; they travel on tiny, exhausted donkeys as they always have done, whacking them with walking sticks;

Philip Hammond and David Mundell expose lack of political grip at heart of government

Was it Philip Hammond who told the Guardian that Britain would discuss a currency union with an independent Scotland? Fleet Street is asking that question after the Defence Secretary said: ‘There will be nothing non-negotiable; everything will be on the table… You can’t go into any negotiation with things that are non-negotiable. You can go with things you intend to make your principal objectives in a negotiation and, when you have issues about which you are not prepared to be flexible, invariably you have to give way on other things in order to achieve your objectives.’ Downing Street has said that the Defence Secretary was speaking as the Defence Secretary;

Cabinet concern over the state of the Unionist campaign in Scotland laid bare

There are only five months to go to the Scottish referendum and the Cabinet is becoming increasingly agitated about the state of the Unionist campaign. At Tuesday’s meeting there was a frank and realistic discussion about its problems. The government’s concern is prompted by the fact that it has fired its biggest gun, telling the Scots there’ll be no currency union after independence, but the Nationalists are still standing. Indeed, they appear to have strengthened their position. The coalition now thinks that part of the problem is that there are not enough purely Scottish voices making the case for the Union. They fear that even Scots with Westminster seats are,

Alex Salmond’s message to Labour supporters: vote ‘yes’ to escape the Tories

When is a conference not a conference? When it’s a rally. Sitting in the hall listening to Alex Salmond this afternoon, it was hard to ignore the feeling that this SNP Spring Conference was about as far away from a party conference as it was possible to get. It really was a political rally – and quite a scary one too. The warm-up acts for the Scottish First Minister consisted of folk singers from the Hebrides singing ‘it’s our country’ and a group of shouty actors putting on extracts from a pro-independence play which will premiere in Edinburgh this summer. Then, when one of the actors had a clear go

Scottish independence: an exemplary or cautionary foreign policy Rorschach Test?

The eyes of the world are upon us. Or so Scottish Nationalists like to say. Whae’s like us? There is some truth to this even if you think unseemly all the boasting we heard about the number of foreign journalists attending, say, the launch of the Scottish Government’s White Paper on independence. It’s all a bit Sally Field for me. A kind of cringe, if you will. What’s less frequently said is that almost all foreign governments would prefer Scotland to vote No. “We all prefer the status quo” one western diplomat told me recently. “That’s just the way states operate.” Known things are preferable to unknown things, even if the

Enough complacency. Enough bitching. The No camp needs to fight to save the Union

Look up complacency in the dictionary and the chances are you will find a picture of a Scottish unionist next to it. For months – no, make that years – politicians at the sharp end of the fight against Scottish Nationalism have been warning about the dangers of complacency. But they might as well have been mumbling platitudes about the weather for all the effect it has had. The unionist side has been complacent, there is no doubt about that. Many in the anti-independence camp seem to have forgotten what this cause means to Alex Salmond and the SNP. They seem to have forgotten that this is all the Nats care about. It is

Without Scotland, the UK would be poorer both culturally and spiritually

If Alex Salmond gets his way, this country will be rendered asunder. Once you cross the Tweed, you’ll be in a foreign land. The fact that Salmond is so keen to suggest that even after independence there’ll still be a ‘social union’ between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom suggests that he knows that people are disturbed by this idea. But one of the puzzles of the Scottish referendum campaign is how reluctant politicians have been to make the emotional case for the Union. Instead, Better Together and the government have chosen to concentrate on a series of technocratic argument. This is why Nick Watt’s story about a senior

Osborne and Alexander deny Scotland could keep the pound

After Nick Watt’s stunning scoop this morning on an unnamed minister saying that an independent Scotland could keep the pound after all, George Osborne and Danny Alexander have released this joint statement: ‘A currency union will not work because it would not be in Scotland’s interests and would not be in the UK’s interests. Scotland would have no control over mortgage rates, and would be binding its hands on tax and funding for vital public services. The Scottish Government are proposing to divorce the rest of the UK but want to keep the joint bank account and credit card. The UK would not put its taxpayers at risk of bailing out a

Ruth Davidson gives the Scottish Tories grounds for hope. At last.

Because I spent the weekend moving house and being depressed by events in Cardiff I did not attend the Scottish Conservative’s spring conference in Edinburgh. A dereliction of journalistic duty, perhaps, but also, well, life takes over sometimes. In truth, I didn’t worry about missing the conference. Attending these things can be dangerous. Like journalism, politics attracts a grim number of copper-bottomed, ocean-going shits but also, like journalism again, a greater number of decent, public-spirited, optimistic folk than you might imagine. Most politicians, most of the time, are in the game for most of the right reasons. Speaking to these people has its uses but, also, its dangers. Before you

Did David Cameron just promise Scots devo max?

Scotland will get more powers – including control over taxes – if Scots vote No in September. That was the message David Cameron took to the Scottish Conservative Party at its annual conference in Edinburgh today. The Prime Minister has come under fire from the Scottish Nationalists who have claimed that the only way Scots can guarantee more powers is to vote Yes. In a clear attempt to undermine this argument, the Prime Minister went further than he has ever done before by promising to devolve more power from Westminster to Holyrood if Scots vote No. He said: ‘The Nationalists want people to believe that this is the end of the line