Alex Salmond is looking increasingly vengeful and obsessive

Editorial: The former leader of the SNP wants to show the allegations against him were part of a bigger plan to end his career in public life, but it could cost him

Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon in 2013 (Getty)

The opposition parties in Scotland are hyperventilating at the prospect of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon giving public evidence about the Salmond saga. Such is the febrile atmosphere at Holyrood that there is speculation the allegations and (purported) evidence about lying and conspiracy, levelled by Salmond against his successor as first minister, will be so devastating that Sturgeon will have to quit.

Labour and the Conservatives, vying for a poor second place in the polls against the SNP, say that Holyrood faces a “crisis of credibility”. It is certainly dramatic stuff, this struggle for supremacy (not so much justice) between two figures who were once such close allies and fast friends on the noble national struggle to liberate their homeland. It is a political thriller. Yet even as it has dragged on for the past three years it has had zero impact on the SNP’s popularity, or Ms Sturgeon’s approval ratings, which climb ever higher.

Sturgeon remains the most popular politician in Scotland and indeed the UK, and her party is set to claim a mandate for a second referendum on independence when the parliamentary elections are held in May. Salmond, though commanding a loyal faction within the SNP, risks losing whatever affection the Scottish people still hold for him.

If it is a “crisis of confidence”, then, it is one that has passed by the bulk of Scots. Sturgeon, and Scotland, more to the point, has had even bigger issues to face than Alex Salmond’s reputation and future. Brexit, Covid and the Union have rightly focussed minds, rather than the arguments about often impenetrable procedures and legal points. Most observers are content to accept the verdict of the court of law that last March acquitted Mr Salmond of all the charges of sexual assault made against him.

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There has been a judicial review of the official treatment of the women concerned and of Salmond himself, and the Scottish authorities conceded their behaviour was flawed, and handed Salmond about a million pounds for his legal bills. So far as Salmond’s culpability is concerned that should have been that. However, it seems that Salmond wants to establish that there was a conspiracy to destroy him, part of which involves demonstrating that Sturgeon lied to the Scottish parliament and broke the ministerial code.

Hence the current inquiries, and hence Salmond’s relentless pursuit of Sturgeon. It is as if the acquittal he had was not enough, and he now wants to show that the allegations against him were part of a plan to end his career in public life. He gives the impression that he will never give up this fight, even if he’s winning.

Salmond has as much right as any other Scot to avail himself of all the means available to defend his reputation, and he is a formidable advocate for himself, but he is now damaging his public standing, whatever happens in these inquiries, by looking increasingly vengeful and obsessive. Even if he pushes Sturgeon out (unlikely) it won’t do him any good. Given everything, Salmond would do well to reconsider these famous lines by Robert Burns, no doubt well known to him:

“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us

To see oursels as others see us!”