Salmond, the millionaires and the historian.

I was going to do a rant about Trump, but the guy kind of satirises himself with the likes of "I am the evidence" and so self-evidently deluded, what's the point of saying any more.

Instead I'm going to offer a few thoughts on the current woes of Alex Salmond. Usually the SNP spin machine is quite literally second to none in Scotland in terms of controlling and manipulating the stories. However, things haven't been running all their way in the last few weeks.

The Millionaires 

First there were the headlines about millionaire SNP donor Brian Soutar having bought Big Eck's recommendation for an honour with his donation. (Although a more interesting question, given the policy u-turn on bus regulation shortly after the donation, was whether he also bought their transport policy).

Then this week we have the twin barrels of Mr Murdoch and Mr Trump. Murdoch's advisor tells the Levenson enquiry into phone-hacking that basically Salmond offered to speak to Jeremy Hunt (who has his own heap of woes to deal with) whenever they (news international) needed him to. Then in wades Mr Trump with his claims of assurances offered to him that no wind farm would be built...

Now here's the thing, I don't trust Salmond, I certainly don't trust Murdoch and I my opinions of Trump are probably best not put in print, but his attempts to effectively blackmail a democratic institution are not welcome here! I'm also not altogether convinced I care who is the wrong or right here, it's a bit sordid whichever way you look at it. The things is that Salmond has gone out of his way to court support (financial or otherwise) from these millionaires and to play in the big boy's game. Maybe now he's realising the true cost of that.

The Historian

The other story that caught my attention was the "historian" David Starkey making comments comparing Salmond to Hitler. Now that's not really what I want to get into - comparisons to Hitler are always crass and hardly ever justified (certainly not in this case), but let's face it Starkey has never been shy about stirring up controversy for the purposes of promoting his own ego.

What interested me was the response from Salmond's office, which included the phrase that this was"an insult to Scotland and the people of Scotland". Er, no it wasn't! It was an insult (and a nasty one) to Salmond individually but not to Scots in general. This isn't the first time I've noticed Salmond and the SNP using this kind of rhetoric - and it's dangerous. A criticism or questioning of the SNP is not a criticism or questioning of Scotland, but too often they make it out to be. It's a habit that they need to break before the real independance debate begins otherwise any real debate on the merits or otherwise will be impossible if the response to any query is an accusation of anti-scottishness. All that will serve to do is enflame English-Scottish tensions and stifle real debate and that is a dangerous game to play!