Severin Carrell reports that tomorrow’s edition of the Sun will endorse Alex Salmond and the SNP. This should not surprise anyone. I suspect most of the Scottish press will support, albeit with significant qualifications, the Nationalists. The most significant of those qualifications is that this is a Holyrood election, not a Westminster one. Endorsing the SNP does not require anyone to support independence it’s merely making the best of a poor job and recognising that the Nats are a more attractive choice than Labour.
The press is prepared to back Salmond but only because independence is not on the immediate or even medium-term agenda. If it were the Nats would find themselves defriended by many of their erstwhile backers in the press. No major Scottish newspaper supports independence; most are likely, I think, to recommend Salmond be given another shot at Holyrood.
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