Scottish Election 2011: Alex Salmond out in front with alot of help from his 'friends'
Superficially at least, it’s not that hard to see why Alex Salmond might appear attractive to those who prefer style over substance. After all, he has contrived to present himself in the Scottish Parliament elections like something of a colossus.
The astonishing thing is that his opponents have gone out of their way to assist him. His main opponent, Labour’s Iain Gray, has hardly laid a glove on him and, indeed, for the first four weeks and six days of the campaign he didn’t even try – relaunching his campaign to focus on the perfidy of the nationalist leader only ten days ago.
For the Tories, Annabel Goldie, whilst insisting she could keep him under control, made it plain that she’d be happy to continue working with Mr Salmond. Only the mostly distracted, and sometimes demented, Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott got stuck in when he wasn’t trying to rescue his party from oblivion, which was most of the time.
It’s also true that long gone are the days when he and his Scottish National Party were the poor relations of politics north of the border.
He travelled the country in a £1000 per hour Bell Long Ranger helicopter – and booked his triumphal entry to Edinburgh 72 hours before the polls even opened - whereas Mr Gray spent the last 24 hours of the campaign in a sleepless dash around the country in a Ford people carrier.
Mr Salmond attended the Royal Wedding on Friday, whereas his old adversary, Gordon Brown ( as well as Tony Blair and the aforementioned Gray) made do with watching it on television.
In spite of wishing to break up her United Kingdom, he has a first class working relationship with the Queen, spending, with his wife Moira, at least one night a year at Balmoral, in the same way as have UK Prime Ministers throughout Elizabeth The Second’s reign. He has generously advised Her Majesty that she would remain head of state of an independent Scotland if he ever succeeds in achieving his main political objective.
And he has struck even closer links with the Prince of Wales – the Duke of Rothesay, when he’s in Scotland – occasionally dropping in for a dram with Charles and Camilla at Birkhall, the heir to the throne’s Deeside retreat.
Whereas at one time Sir Sean Connery was his highest-profile backer he now has a fair old galaxy of stars who insist that Wee Eck ( his popular nickname) is their man. Brian Cox, the actor, and Midge Ure, the pop star, are among those who sing his praises.
But perhaps more importantly, Mr Salmond is being supported by several wealthy Scottish businessmen. Brian Souter, boss of Stagecoach, handed over £500,000 to the SNP’s election war chest, a sum that was matched in no time by another half million in smaller donations. Martin Gilbert, head of Aberdeen Asset Management, which looks after funds in excess of £180 billion and Jim Spowart, founder of Intelligent Finance, also support him for First Minister, although it’s not known of they’re donors, too.
One of his strongest supporters is Sir David Murray, present owner of Glasgow Rangers FC and a leading Scottish entrepreneur, who says he wants Salmond to continue as First Minister but insists he doesn’t want independence.
It is just this sort of support that has created the momentum that has helped drive the SNP to the top of the opinion polls, with a stupendous double digit lead, just as polling stations open for business.
Mr Salmond is playing a canny, if duplicitous, game – asking for the voters to back him as First Minister whilst playing down his demand to end the 300-plus-year political Union with England.
If pressed he’ll say that a good result on May 5 will give him the “moral authority” to continue with his plan to break up Britain. But otherwise the “I (for independence) word” hardly ever leaves his lips.
However, I have no doubt that even Mr Salmond must have watched open mouthed as the Labour effort imploded so spectacularly. It wasn’t just the Battle of the Sandwich Bar, when Mr Gray took refuge in one instead of standing up to anti-cuts protestors, although that was probably one of the campaign’s seminal – and most hilarious - moments.
One of the biggest problems was undoubtedly personal. Even those closest to him would have to admit that Iain Gray, although earnest, diligent and clever, is little more than a dogged plodder – straight out of Central Casting’s image of a traditional Scottish Old Labour loyalist.
And although he insisted it was all deliberate, to spend the bulk of his campaign attacking the Tories, instead of the SNP, was madness. Pure and simple.
Miss Goldie is second only to Salmond in the popularity stakes and she’s confident of her vote holding up reasonably well - in spite of what the polls suggest – and seeks to tell the Scots that they cannot continue to have everything for nothing – free tuition fees and prescription charges being but the latest in a long line of taxpayer-funded freebies.
She’ll still be a distant third come polling day but although she doesn’t admit it, publicly at least, she wants Salmond to win. Although he denies it, too, David Cameron is also backing the Nats, believing that the Westminster coalition could work better with them.
Several of his supporters, including some newspapers, back Alex Salmond personally while claiming to oppose independence. However, from this vantage point the belief that it’s possible to have Salmond without independence – or Eck-Lite, as this column christened the phenomenon – appears hopelessly misguided.
He may be a more attractive choice than a lacklustre Labour leader but to imagine that Alex Salmond can be given a new mandate on Thursday and then subjected to strict Unionist control, thereafter, is dangerously naïve.
It is precisely the same mistake that the Labour devolutionists made in 1997 when they said that giving Scotland back its parliament would kill off nationalism.
Last time I looked Alex Salmond looks very much alive to me. And the polls suggest he will get another shot in the arm on Thursday.
Inch by inch, through a mixture of ineptitude and reckless concession, the United Kingdom is being undermined and Alex Salmond’s smug grin grows wider by the day.
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