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Alex Salmond presses on with ‘fanciful’ ambitions in spite of Scotland’s interests

Alex Salmond is interviewed for TV after announcing he will stand as a candidate for Westminster.
Alex Salmond is interviewed for TV after announcing he will stand as a candidate for Westminster.

The campaign to keep Alex Salmond out of the House of Commons began on Saturday when he announced, not unexpectedly, that he would contest the seat of Gordon in the May 2015 general election.

Currently held by the Liberal Democrat Malcolm Bruce, with a majority of 6,748, Gordon overlaps Salmond’s Holyrood constituency of Aberdeenshire East and he seems to believe it is his for the taking.

This makes Unionist blood boil Aberdeenshire voted 60 to 40% against independence and the desire to puncture the former first minister’s ego may even encourage a cross party effort to defeat him.

Bruce’s replacement, Christine Jardine, may not be well known but if Labour and the Tories backed her in a “keep Salmond out at all costs” plot she could beat him. Already there is muttering about a Better Together-style alignment, with tactical voting against the SNP.

It would obviously be good for the people of Gordon if they got Jardine instead of Salmond. Who wants an MP whose stated intention is to keep fighting the battle that he lost in September, when they could have a representative who will defend local interests?

And after his referendum downfall, another humiliation would be appealing, of course, to that proportion of the total electorate who didn’t vote Yes, which amounts to more than 60% of Scots.

But imagine if his gamble paid off and he did win. Would it really be so awful? For one thing, he would be removed from the back benches of the Scottish parliament, something to be welcomed by all MSPs, not least those in his own party.

Since his decision to resign as SNP leader, he has made several unhinged interventions in public life, which do not bode well for his future career here as elder statesman. He said Scotland should declare unilateral independence. He reneged on his promise that the September ballot was a once-in-a-lifetime event. He hit out at the BBC for alleged bias and for using “London journalists” in Scotland. He called a radio phone-in to defend an amnesty for poll tax cheats.

Then, last week, he denounced a columnist who dared to question the wisdom of Scots Makar Liz Lochhead joining the SNP and thus making her public position a partisan one.

Salmond’s bellicosity would not be missed, especially not by Nicola Sturgeon, who cannot hope to make her own mark while he is at large in the land.

If he returns to Westminster, where he represented Banff and Buchan for 23 years until 2010, he will keep Scotland in the news if not on the agenda. There are several possible Commons scenarios, not all of them frightening.

His ambitions involve holding a hung parliament to ransom in exchange for even more constitutional concessions to Scotland and he has mooted the idea of a Cabinet role for himself. Alarming as this sounds, it depends on the SNP winning an unprecedented haul of Labour seats in Scotland.

Salmond said five years ago that Scots would send 20 or maybe 25 MPs to Westminster; they ended up sending just six. This time, some polls support his extravagant claims but voters tend to behave differently in general elections and see a vote for the Nationalists as a wasted vote.

The SNP may gain a handful of seats at Labour’s expense but the notion of Salmond leading a band of “progressive allies” in some kind of “powerful force” is fanciful particularly as he has ruled out a deal with the Tories (beneficiaries of any Labour collapse).

I think we are more likely to encounter him, if he wins the seat, in his old Westminster incarnation of opportunistic irritant, popping up during debates to provide occasional diversions.

For Scots, accustomed to Salmond omnipotence, this would be a form of entertainment. Salmond struggling to be heard, ineffectual, deprived of desk-thumping devotees cheering him on. His politics of grievance and blame, unchallenged in the SNP-dominated chamber and committees at Holyrood, would have no truck in the Commons. He might, after all these years, have to hone his skills as a serious politician.

I almost want him to win but then I don’t live in Gordon.