‘The largest thorn in the side of Gordon Brown’

Alex Salmond is excitedly brandishing his new House of Commons security pass. ‘Look at the expiry date,’ he says. ‘May 2010. That’s the latest date for a general election.’ By then, on his calculations, Scotland will be seven years away from independence. Each MP has to choose a four-digit security code for the card, and I ask if he chose 2017, his new deadline to end the Union. ‘Could be,’ he smiles, as if to hint that his real timetable is even shorter.

The First Minister of Scotland is sitting in his old Westminster office, looking very happy to be back. He admits he prefers the Commons feel to the sanitised Continental-style layout of the Scottish Parliament — and, indeed, missed it so much that he went back to Westminster between 2000 and 2004 before being re-elected as party leader. In May he led the Scottish National Party to victory in Holyrood, ending Labour’s 50-year domination of Scottish politics.