Alex salmond

After a year of surprises across the board from the Tory majority to Labour’s new leader, Westminster’s rebels and insurgents descended on the Savoy Hotel to celebrate The Spectator‘s Parliamentarian of the Year awards. With the awards presented by Alex Salmond — last year’s winner of Politician of the Year, the former First Minister of Scotland made sure to put Scottish independence firmly on the menu, namechecking his country’s struggle several times in his speech. With Jeremy Corbyn unable to be there in person to collect his gong for Campaigner of the Year, it fell on his fellow comrade Diane Abbott to do the honours. The Labour frontbencher found time in her

David Cameron’s decision to wade into the EU debate by dismissing the Norway option and warning that there is no ‘milk and honey’ alternative to EU membership is one of the most significant political moments of this parliament. It is Cameron entering the referendum fray, and long before the renegotiation has been concluded. On one level, Cameron is correct. There are Eurosceptics who have advocated the Norway option. In his keynote speech on Europe last year, Owen Paterson — who is on the parliamentary planning committee of Vote Leave — declared: ‘This brings us to the only realistic option, which is to stay within the EEA agreement. The EEA is

This year’s SNP conference has proved to be a somewhat tame affair with Nicola Sturgeon playing down talk of a second independence referendum. While hacks hoping to meet the party’s army of cybernats have so far been left disappointed, Mr S has compiled a selection of photos showcasing the slightly stranger elements of this year’s conference:

Nicola Sturgeon got one thing right this morning. A year on from the independence referendum, Scotland’s First Minister allowed that the plebiscite “invited us, individually and collectively, to imagine the kind of country we wanted to live in”. The answer, you may be surprised to be reminded, was Britain. Surprised, because it has since become commonplace to observe that the losers have become winners and the winners losers. Scotland, everyone agrees, is a changed place even though (almost) everyone agrees that the country would still reject independence were there another referendum next month. (The economic questions that hurt the Yes campaign so badly last year are, if anything, harder to answer

So here we go again. Alex Salmond, popping up on the Andrew Marr show while Nicola Sturgeon is in China, makes news without saying anything new about the circumstances in which the SNP might – or might not! – press for a second referendum on Scottish independence. David Cameron, also overseas, responds saying there’s no need for any such plebiscite at any point in this parliament. Calm down, Jock. This will, I am sure, be well-received. All of which should surprise precisely no-one. Seventy percent of SNP supporters want another referendum before the end of this parliament; 90 percent want one within ten years. In such circumstances, you can understand why Salmond thinks another

He once said that the independence referendum was a ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity but Alex Salmond has brushed aside any illusions that the SNP are not desperately hoping, and planning, for a second vote. On the Andrew Marr Show, Salmond said that another referendum is ‘inevitable’ and the only question is of timing — something he said is ‘very much in the hands of Nicola Sturgeon’. Salmond went on to explain three criteria that could be used to show ‘material change in circumstances’ for Scotland and thus trigger another referendum: ‘I can see three issues which are moving things towards a second referendum on a timescale yet to be determined. One is

Is the #ToriesForCorbyn campaign politics at its most infantile? As one of the few conservative commentators willing to defend it in the media, I’ve been doing my best to rebut that charge. The most frequent line of attack is that there’s something dishonest about it. The Labour leadership election isn’t an open primary. It’s restricted to members, registered supporters and affiliated supporters. OK, you can register as a supporter for £3 — a change brought in by Ed Miliband to reduce union influence — but only if you pretend to be a Labour sympathiser. And that’s just wrong. The short answer to this is that no such pretence is necessary

I wonder how many Scots who voted ‘Yes’ in last year’s referendum are watching events unfold in Greece and having second thoughts? It’s not quite a ‘there, but for the grace of God’ moment, but it’s not far off. This analogy depends upon two big assumptions, both of which will be disputed by the nationalists. The first is that Scotland would not have automatically been allowed to remain in the EU following a ‘Yes’ vote, but, as a new state, would have had to apply for membership and, as a condition of joining, would have been forced to join the euro. How questionable is this assumption? The Scottish government’s position has

In 2008 Alex Salmond told Total Politics that: ‘As you know, by choice, SNP MPs have abstained from every vote on English legislation that does not have an immediate Scottish consequence. If you’re asking me should people in England be able to run their own health service or education system, my answer is yes. They should be able to do it without the bossy interference of Scots Labour MPs. We had this in reverse through the 1980s.’ A year earlier, Angus Robertson, MP for Moray, had asked the Prime Minister if he agreed it was ‘completely iniquitous’ that English MPs ‘are not able to decide on matters in Scotland but Scottish MPs from

Only last month, Alex Salmond found himself at the centre of a sexism row after he told Anna Soubry to ‘behave yourself woman‘ during a Commons debate. The chippy Cabinet minister went on to criticise the former SNP leader for his comments, claiming he had a 19th century attitude to women, by which they ‘should be seen, and not heard’. Happily, the pair now appear to have put their differences behind them during a trip to Aberdeen. Soubry reports that Salmond provided great entertainment on their flight from Aberdeen back to London. The feeling is mutual, with Salmond boasting that Soubry behaved ‘impeccably’ this time around. She even gave him

The second reading of the EU referendum bill today was dominated by questions about the voting franchise and the neutrality of Whitehall. On the first topic, the SNP, Liberal Democrats and Greens expressed concerns that 16 and 17 year olds won’t be allowed to vote. The SNP’s foreign affairs spokesman Alex Salmond said it was ‘deeply insulting’ not to include under 18s in the referendum, while shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn said there was a ‘ring of familiarity’ to denying younger ‘uns the vote — a reference to similar arguments used in the past to deny women the vote. Whereas the voting franchise is unlikely to stop the bill from moving forward, the lack of purdah is looking

Alex Salmond’s reintroduction to Parliament has hit a few bumps in the road this week. He was criticised on Tuesday when he appeared to use Charles Kennedy’s death as an opportunity to push Scottish independence. Now, Salmond has told Anna Soubry, the small business minister, to ‘behave herself, woman’. During a House of Commons debate last night on devolution, he stopped his speech and scolded Soubry for her behaviour in the chamber: ‘Luckily the honourable lady is on the front bench so therefore won’t be standing for chair on one of these select committees, otherwise she would have done her chances no good whatsoever. The Treasury bench should behave better in these debates,

Neither man will much care for the comparison but, more than ever, Alex Salmond is rather like Gordon Brown. Each struggles to admit their opponents might ever have a point and that said point might be held in good faith. More importantly, each has the habit of thinking their opponents lesser mortals simply because they dare to take a different view on the great issues of the day. I thought of this today when I saw Salmond’s remarks responding to the sad news about Charlie Kennedy’s death. They were revealing remarks, just not in any way that flatters the former First Minister. Salmond, like everyone else, acknowledged Kennedy’s essential decency

‘The art of politics is not to lie,’ claimed Alex Salmond on last night’s This Week. A noble sentiment for sure, but Mr S feels it’s his duty to remind readers of a story that broke in October 2013. The Telegraph reported that ‘Alex Salmond spent almost £20,000 of taxpayers’ money to keep secret legal advice about an independent Scotland’s EU status that never even existed’. Although Salmond suggested in a television interview that he had received advice from Scottish Government law officers on the matter, it later transpired that ‘no specific legal advice’ existed. Shall we just leave it at that?

Ahead of the arrival of 56 SNP MPs in Westminster yesterday, Alex Salmond offered his new colleagues some advice in a recent interview. He said: ‘Make your voice heard, represent your constituents, and stay out the Strangers Bar’. So far, so good. In fact, Salmond will no doubt be glad to hear that his fellow MPs have taken his advice and stayed out of the Strangers bar. Instead, they have opted to make Parliament’s sports and social bar their new base. Word reaches Steerpike that a few members of staff had their noses put out of joint last night when the lesser frequented bar was unexpectedly busy. ‘It was packed full of the SNP gang – on a Monday,’

On the radio this morning, Ed Miliband spoke as if he could get a Queen’s Speech passed without speaking to the SNP. This struck some as implausible, but it sounds right to me. Here’s the transcript:- Q: Well let’s just be absolutely clear… neither you nor any of your colleagues will have any conversations with anybody from the SNP at any point after the election. A: We’re not going to negotiate about a Queen’s Speech, no. We’re not going to negotiate with the Scottish National…(Interrupted) Q: Well you’re refining my question a little bit aren’t you. A: I don’t think I am John. You’re asking me whether we’re going to negotiate about