Alex salmond

So Alex Salmond has achieved the feat of becoming Scotland’s longest serving First Minister. This is a notable achievement. After all, he has avoided the fate of one of his predecessors – resigning in disgrace – and another: being defeated at the ballot box. Salmond has just served as Scotland’s First Minister for 2001 days, or five and half years, just eclipsing the term served by Jack McConnell between 2001 and 2007. But even he would agree that the field to contest this landmark is not a large one. Scotland has only had four first ministers since 1999. The first, Donald Dewar, lasted just a year before his death in 2000. The second,

Philip Hammond is one of those ministers who seems to be held in greater esteem by those inside the Westminster hamlet than those of us who live beyond its boundaries. Westminster’s natives may, of course, be right, but it is striking how often the Secretary of State for Defence prefers to cast his arguments in terms of economics rather than, well, defence. He’s at it again today. Mr Hammond is popping in to the nuclear submarine base at Faslane where he will “announce” that the government is splashing another £350m on the next phase of the mission to replace Britain’s Trident nuclear missiles. For reasons best known to himself, the

For years Scotland has been waiting to see when his luck would run out – well, now it has. Alex Salmond: gambler, tipster, political animal and First Minister now has another moniker: author of the country’s first scomnishambles. Yesterday marked, without doubt, the First Minister’s worst day in office. First, he lost two MSPs. Left-wingers Jean Urquhart and John Finnie announced they were leaving the SNP because of the party’s conversion to Nato. That decision, taken at SNP conference last weekend, has alienated many left-wingers in the party because they see it – rightly – as part of Salmond’s attempts to take the SNP into the moderate, centre ground of Scottish politics. But

It  has been a disastrous day for the Scottish National Party. Its majority at Holyrood has been cut to just one this morning after two MSPs – Jean Urquhart and John Finnie – quit the party in protest at its decision at its conference in Perth this weekend to end its opposition to Nato. Then Nicola Sturgeon gave a statement to the Scottish Parliament which led to her boss being branded a ‘liar’ by Labour as she admitted that the Scottish government has not yet sought legal advice on whether an independent Scotland would continue to be a member of the European Union. She said: ‘The Scottish government has previously

The Scottish National Party conference in Perth ought to have been a festival of ideas, showcasing solutions that only be applied by independence. Instead it has reminded everyone that the SNP is bereft of ideas*  – and why the union is not in as much danger as Alex Salmond makes out. Salmond’s speech laid into the “Lord Snooties” down south, and the “London government” which would “put this first class nation in the second class carriages.” His message – and that of his colleagues – seemed to be that an independent Scotland would have so much money that it’d be first class for everyone. Nicola Sturgeon’s speech suggested that the

Here’s David Torrance with the kind of acute observation I wish I’d thought of first. There is, he writes, a comparison to be drawn between Alex Salmond and Boris Johnson: [Salmond’s] approval ratings also remain remarkably high, but then Salmond enjoys a very specific sort of popularity. Asked who best “stands up for Scotland” he wins hands down, but if voters are asked if they agree with his vision for an independent Scotland then it’s two-to-one against. So Scots like Alex Salmond, but they only like him in a particular setting. That context is the halfway house between full government and opposition otherwise known as devolution. As First Minister Salmond

Whisper it sceptically but something interesting may have happened in Scotland yesterday. It might even turn out to be an important something too. Even more remarkably, this was all because of a speech given by Johann Lamont, leader of Labour’s bedraggled Scottish troops. I know, it all sounds too astonishing to be true. Be that as it may, Lamont’s speech in which she argued it’s time for Scotland to cease living on “the never never” and admit there will, probably, soon be a choice between raising taxes and cutting services was a rare move towards reality. Lamont’s address was the kind of thing sarcastic types are supposed to call “brave”

‘I don’t think we can have a referendum on independence unless we have a single question’. Michael Moore was unequivocal this afternoon: the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence will be a single-question vote, or it won’t happen at all. The Scottish Secretary made his determination quite clear when he appeared before the Scottish Affairs Select Committee, bandying about phrases such as the referendum is of ‘huge political importance’, it has to be ‘fair and clear’ and both sides are ‘willing and able to come to an agreement’. He was upbeat about the progress of initial talks with Alex Salmond’s administration, telling the MPs that he believed a deal on the

Alex Salmond has gone rather quiet this summer. Before Britain’s season of fun, the SNP leader appeared unstoppable in his quest for Scottish independence, but the Diamond Jubilee and Olympics have halted Salmond’s momentum. The Mayor of London crystallised this feeling yesterday during one of his #askboris sessions on Twitter: ‘The Scots are never going to vote for independence…these games have done for Salmond…vote Hoy’ The SNP retaliated today, with Kenneth Gibson MSP lambasting one ‘Boris Johnston’: Commenting on Boris Johnston’s claims that the Olympics will have an effect on how Scotland votes at the referendum for independence, SNP MSP Kenneth Gibson, said: “The more Boris speaks out against independence, the better it

Have Alex Salmond’s hopes for Scottish independence died, thanks to the Olympics? In this week’s cover feature, Iain Martin writes that the national pride and spiritual unification emanating from the 2012 games have finished off the SNP’s hopes of a break from the union. On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Iain recounts when he first realised Salmond had a serious problem: I was sitting on Friday and Saturday on the shore of Loch Fyne in the Highlands watching Team GB do these extraordinary things. I felt a wonderful feeling of togetherness and it seemed to me that it was the perfect riposte to narrow nationalism and the peevish attitude of

It is Armed Forces Day and army morale is low – according to the Telegraph at least. The prospect of a 20 per cent cut in personnel is provoking anger in the ranks, which the civilian can perceive dimly by looking at the posts left on the Army Rumour Service. Rumours of amalgamation and abolition have been circulating for some time in the run up to next week’s announcement. The Telegraph reports that historic English regiments are going to be remoulded, especially those that rely on foreign recruits (usually from the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands). Two of the so-called ‘Super Regiments’, the Yorkshire Regiment and the Rifles, are set lose