Alex Salmond was criticised in the spring for endorsing certain admirable qualities in Vladimir Putin. Salmond told GQ magazine that Mr. Putin had ‘restored a substantial part of Russian pride and that must be a good thing.’
He was quick afterwards to lament that Russia’s record on human rights needed improvement and to express solidarity with Ukraine, but as time goes on the parallels between Salmond and Putin seem to go deeper. Both bank on presiding over economies that are currently cash-rich from oil and gas – resources whose future may be shaky in the long term. And they both argue that Western military action in Syria or Iraq is wrong without the sanction of the UN Security Council. Moreover, they have arguably both created a political career out of stoking, and indeed creating, a sense of renewed national pride and jingoism among their respective domestic populations.
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