Mandy Rhodes interviews First Minister, Alex Salmond, as he celebrates a year of leading the SNP Government
Alex Salmond’s first year as leader of an historic SNP Government at Holyrood began and ended with a national emergency.
This latest crisis at Grangemouth has ironically seen him thrown into bed with the UK Government over oil, of all things and emerge unruffled and characteristically, satisfied with his own performance.
So what has happened during the last year for Salmond to go from being a man once described by political rivals as being not fit for purpose to being a politician who could steer a country through a crisis?
It was only last June that Salmond’s inimitable political posturing
following the terrorist attack on Glasgow Airport raised eyebrows and
questions about whether this was a man that could ever put aside his
SNP fundamentals when the gravity of a situation demanded something
more temperate. He was attacked for immediately announcing that the
suspected terrorists were not Scottish. It seemed at that point that
his nationalism knew no bounds.
However, he dismisses this criticism as mischief making and says that
it came from one source within the Scotland Office who, he says, ‘‘will
never think well of the SNP’’ and who briefed “one newspaper
incorrectly” that Salmond was leaking information from Cabinet
Committee meetings about the origins of the terrorists. That
misinformation, he says, simply got recycled by other media.
“I wasn’t giving away anything from Cabinet, it was actually
information given to me from Strathclyde Police who, the last time I
checked, were not the Scottish Government, and it was information that
the police were extremely keen to have in the public domain as far as
they could do so given legal restrictions because their aim and concern
was to maintain community cohesion in Scotland. So not only did I say
that the suspects were not from the Asian community of Scotland but
immediately after being at the airport, myself and a key officer from
Strathclyde Police went to the central mosque in Glasgow to reassure
the Asian community that, as the policemen put it, it was not their
sons and daughters that were suspected of this crime. Why was this
important? Because in response to a terrorist outrage, you need to have
the support and sustenance of the entire community of Scotland and you
don’t want to see a society divided against itself so whatever was said
in unattributed briefings about me leaking information from Cabinet
meetings was nonsense.
“Where you have things like the terrorists’ outrage, foot and mouth and
fuel disruption, you don’t make political points, I didn’t say those
things about the community of Scotland to make political points, I said
it because it was my responsibility to help keep cohesion. I don’t want
a political knock-about with Westminster over these issues which are,
to a great extent, shared matters of interest, why would I? There are
plenty of issues of legitimate political difference where the
Government’s job is to stand up for Scotland, people expect us to stand
up for Scotland and we will stand up for Scotland regardless of whether
sources like it or not but I don’t regard issues such as a terrorist
attack or a fuel dispute as the subject matter of a political
knock-about.”
This is a very different Salmond from the cheeky chappie with the
sanguine smile who always seemed up for a fight or an opportunity to
mock. A year in office, he presents as a more credible, grown-up
politician and while no one has ever doubted his ability, Salmond of
old could easily lapse into being an irritating man with a bombastic
line in quips and insult
A year in office, he presents as a more credible, grown-up
politician and while no one has ever doubted his ability, Salmond of
old could easily lapse into being an irritating man with a bombastic
line in quips and insult 
. Given that his first year in tenure as leader
of the Scottish Government started with a crisis and has ended with
one, how does he reflect on the last 12 months?
“When I first heard the news about the attack on Glasgow Airport I had
just arrived back at Bute House, having had a fantastic day at the
opening of the Parliament. I had just been inspecting the Red Hot
Chilli Pipers with the Queen and we had been making a joke about the
changing of the guards and then when I came back to Bute House and
turned on the television, there was the news about the attack so, of
course, there was this instant low but it is how people respond to
these things that has also been a high point of this first year. The
fact that Scotland coped so well with a terrorist attack was a high
point because it showed people had the resilience and strength to do
that, the fact that we coped with a foot-and-mouth outbreak was a
strength and the same applies to Grangemouth because it shows we can
operate effectively in difficult times.
“Nobody wishes these events on anyone but there are lessons to learn.
No operation is perfect and once we’ve got through this completely, we
will certainly share that information with those south of the border so
if one of their oil refineries has a disruption of any kind, whatever
it might be, they will be able to benefit from our experience in this
matter.”
And it is that off-the-cuff remark, however well-meaning and
conciliatory, that will rile his Westminster colleagues. There will be
some who will always believe that Salmond would make SNP mileage out of
any old thing and it is hard to find fault with that view but
regardless of the sceptics, Grangemouth proved he could rise above it
although he does sneak in the admission that all the while he was
operating in a parallel universe, calculating how the situation would
have played out in an independent Scotland. The answer? “It wouldn’t
have happened”.
He says that England only woke up to the fact that this was a major
problem when the Forties link dried up. Up until then there was a
feeling that this was a local Scottish difficulty.
Local difficulty or not, Salmond had the foresight to recognise the
gravity of the impending situation and grab those reigns and whoa that
pony. He pressed the button to set up the boy’s own emergency room,
SEER, that is activated in cases of national or regional emergency or
crisis and had a daily, direct line through to Westminster ministers
and met with a number of them personally, including Gordon Brown.
It must be a sweet irony for him that the first time he gets to sit down with the Prime Minister properly, it is to do with oil.
“I never thought of it that way but I suppose there is an irony, yes!
Yes, that’s quite strange, isn’t it? To be fair, when the terrorist
attack happened, Gordon had just come in as Prime Minister, he was
newly installed at that time and he phoned within minutes and we were
both in Cabinet committees because obviously, it was a joint operation
between London and Scotland. It was a terrorist attack in Glasgow but
it was obviously related to the attempted attacks in London so there
was a lot of joint working.
“With any of these issues, the only thing that became a problem between
us was over foot and mouth and my annoyance about the withdrawal of the
funding when the election wasn’t called, which I have to say p-ed me
off somewhat but as far as national emergencies are involved, there has
never been any hint of anything but co-operation. John Hutton has been
great. I spoke with John immediately after our Cabinet sub-committee
which has met 13 times - we’ll hopefully not meet all that much more
now but we’ll probably clock up 15 or 16 meetings all told. We’ve got
people embedded, to use the military term, in Grangemouth, with the
unions, with the company, with BP, we’ve got people embedded in John’s
department in London, we’ve got people everywhere, they have to know
exactly what is happening.”
He believes that the experience – a bit like living in times of war –
has brought the two governments a little closer together. Less a
love-in than a thawing but certainly, Salmond and John Hutton, the
Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform may
find negotiations around other matters a little less fractious.
“I certainly think it has helped relations between myself and John
Hutton because although we knew each other, we now know each other
extremely well, and who knows, I’ve got some political points I want to
raise with John about energy in particular and their plans for North
Sea inter-connectors. Who knows, maybe the relationships we’ve built up
during this may persuade him that he wants to get behind these ideas?”
What a difference a year and a state of emergency can make. Does he
accept that this effective demonstration of working together reveals
how well Scotland and England can operate as a Union rather than as
separate countries?
“Obviously, one of the things this situation does demonstrate, if it
does demonstrate anything, is just the incredible value and power of
oil. I think we are cottoning onto the fact here that after years of
believing that oil was past its peak, that it still has many years to
go in terms of production and in terms of value, it is nowhere near its
peak. The value of oil still in the North Sea is far greater than the
value of what has already come out of it. In terms of how this world
operates, oil is king and therefore, to have it in such quantities in
Scotland is a great advantage.”
I feel an independence argument coming on. Given his performance during
the last 12 months, does he imagine a referendum taking place before
2010?
“No, we are sticking to the timetable we laid out in the election
campaign and everything that has happened to date confirms my belief
that that is absolutely the correct position to have.
“In the SNP, we’ve been debating this for years and years and years and
we assume that everybody understands what independence means but
actually, that is not true. Lots of people don’t understand but a lot
of people now want to understand and to think about it. So I think in
terms of a timetable, it is right that we move into phase two of the
National Conversation, where we are talking to the institutions of
Scotland about not just what is important to us, the concept of
political independence in the modern world and independence in an
interdependent world, but we are talking to them about how it will
matter to them. We are talking to churches about nuclear weapons, we
are talking to environmental groups about what that means in terms of
energy policy, we are talking to Help the Aged about what that means in
terms of not having money held back from personal care through the
Attendance Allowance…We are talking about the nuts and bolts of why it
is a better idea to have the powers that are required and why that
package of powers when you put it all together, translates into
independence.
“I think we have such a strong argument so it is really exciting to be
able to present it. We can say we will be able to do this; we will be
able to do that. We will be able to make choices. What the recent
example of Free Personal Care shows, and perhaps it is a better
illustration than council tax, is that while personal care is devolved,
unless you have the full powers, even devolved issues can be, depending
on your point of view, sabotaged or can have a spoke put in the wheel
by Westminster ministers for no other reason than they don’t believe in
that policy. You have to control the finances to control the policy and
that applies not just to reserved functions, it applies to nominally
devolved ones as well.”
Does he think we could afford that policy of Free Personal Care if Scotland was independent?
“Yes, of course we could. The Sutherland report says there is a
shortfall but it says it needs more finance. The withdrawal of finance
from it has been the crutch at the base of a very good policy and in
terms of the country’s GDP and public spending, it is still a small
part and is perfectly affordable and I’ve made the case many times
before but with oil at $420 a barrel this year, Scotland is massively
within budgetary surplus.
“In terms of independence and what we could afford and couldn’t afford,
it depends entirely on what you do with your economy. If you make your
economy grow faster then you’ll be an enormous economic success, if you
don’t then you won’t but the idea that we are somehow safe in this
position in the Union is ludicrous. The Conservatives are eyeing up the
Barnett formula. That it is to be revised. Does anybody think the
review of Barnett is going to result in an increase in funding for
Scotland? So this idea that we are safe within the constructors is
ludicrous. We won’t be safe until we can generate our own revenue from
our own efforts with our own interests in making our country
successful.”
And how do we do that? It can’t be just built on oil? He shakes his
head at having to once again explain Scotland’s economic advantage. He
points out that some studies – official ones – suggest that Scotland is
not an economic basket case forever dependent on government handouts
but is the sixth richest country in the world.
“It is absurd to argue that such a prosperous country would be anything
other than a country of great economic potential,” he says.
“For the first time in 20 years, we’ve had two quarters where Scottish
economic growth has been higher than that of the UK. Two successive
quarters. Retail sales are holding up better in Scotland, house prices
have not collapsed in Scotland and business confidence is higher than
it has been. Some of the impact, I think, of the new-found confidence
and positivity in Scotland has begun to be felt in the economy. It
doesn’t mean we are not going to have tough times, everybody is going
to have tough times in a global credit crunch, that is what happens but
relatively, there are good signs that our economy is going to emerge
more robustly than perhaps it might have been expected [to] and
certainly, relative to other areas.
“Economic confidence is a tender flower, it doesn’t take much to turn
positives into negatives and certainly, one of the things that can
really damage your economy is a fuel supply interruption a la 2000 but
there is more oil and gas in value terms still to be taken, compared to
what’s been taken so far, by far and the correct way to sustain an oil
and gas policy is to do what the Norwegians have done and invest some
of the proceeds in a fund for future generations and invest and make
sure the investments are available to the country as a whole. If you
ask somebody in Norway how long their oil and gas is going to last, the
answer is forever. It will last as long as that investment fund is
available to the Norwegian economy. That is exactly the policy we
should pursue. It is clearly not too late because we are less than half
way through the value of its economic impact but we’ve got some other
wonderful opportunities and great industries in Scotland.
“Obviously, renewables is a fantastic opportunity. The Saltire prize
that we announced will position us as the world centre for renewables.
We have 25 per cent of the estimated offshore marine renewables of
Europe. Tidal flow in the Pentland Firth is unrivalled and unsurpassed.
It is the Saudi Arabia of tidal power. We can generate 60 gigawatts in
a generation; ten times our consumption is the estimate. Will we get
the technology? Some of it is already here. We have a functioning
wavery deployed in Scotland, which is provoking great interest across
the world. We have the world’s deepest offshore windfarms, which have a
utilisation factor of mid-50 per cent compared to 30 per cent onshore.
They are there and working at the present moment. We are positioning
ourselves to be a world centre and we are taking advantage of the
natural advantage that we’ve been given by the creator of the universe.”
Could he envisage Scotland becoming a major exporter of energy?
“We’ve been an exporter of electricity to England for donkey’s years
and I think I would see us being an electricity exporter to Europe, not
within many years but within ten years. But what do we need to do this?
We’ve got the resource, we’ve got the advantage, we need to iron out
the disadvantages we’ve got because of the structures in the UK. If I’m
talking to green energy groups about the need for independence, all I
need to say is the National Grid or Ofgem. Now to be fair, both Ofgem
and the National Grid have started to engage in that conversation but
we have to have offshore energy grids, west coast and east coast, to
take this power. Now I read that because we turned down a windfarm in
the Western Isles, this is a blow to those plans. Absolute rubbish.
Just because you believe in renewable energy doesn’t mean you have to
approve every application in every location. There was a huge problem
with European directives; it wouldn’t have got to the first base
because it transgressed so many of them. That doesn’t mean others
won’t. We’ve approved, I think, 11 energy decisions since we took
office. The last lot averaged three a year. Our target of 31 per cent
renewable electricity production compared to our consumption by 2011,
we’ll get through that no bother at all and 50 per cent by 2020? We’ll
meet that without any difficulty whatsoever and we will soon be at
three gigawatts of power, probably this year, from renewables.
“Let’s say in 20 years time that Scotland is producing ten times its
electricity requirement, let’s say we are sending massive quantities
not just south of the border but let’s say we are sending it to the
energy-poor countries who otherwise would be reliant on Russian gas
supplies and are making a contribution along with the other energy that
comes from Norway and perhaps in the future, even Iceland, then you
make sure that you are getting it where you produce it cheaper than
where you are transporting it to. That is entirely reasonable and
therefore, all your industry becomes more competitive as a result and
that is as it should be. So if you look at all the upstream and all the
downstream, we are going to be the world centre of renewables and we
want to be producing it here.
“And we’ve another great industry in bio-technology and what’s our
other natural advantage apart from the ingenuity and quality of our
people? Well, our natural advantage for one area of pharmaceuticals is
our medical records. We’ve got a dreadful medical record, one of the
worst in Europe, which obviously, we are working to turn round and we
know our responsibilities in that but by God, we can capitalise on that
record because we’ve charted all our illnesses in a very exact manner.
We know for the last 100 years how many killer diseases we’ve had in
Scotland and who has had them and all the rest of it. That’s the
resource we have because of our public health service. So in order to
make that a comparative advantage, because it is the holy grail of the
pharmaceutical industry, all you have to do is make sure your public
health records are integrated and used as a resource to support
research and the industry, that then benefits your people because
obviously, it is a good thing to become a focus of trials for new
treatments because that is a benefit for people who otherwise wouldn’t
have any help available to them but also provides a support base that
allows your industry to grow....”
And he goes on…It’s rousing stuff, enough to ask what happens the day
after a referendum on independence and the answer is yes, what happens
next?
“We negotiate for a mandate to negotiate for Scotland to become an
independent country and to be fair, I think no serious UK politician
since Margaret Thatcher has said that they would try and gainsay that
process if there is a referendum result in favour of that.”
Would he prefer a Conservative Government or a Labour one at Westminster to negotiate with?
“Neither. I would prefer a hung parliament. I think a hung parliament
in the current situation if we get a substantial block of 20 SNP MPs
and the latest polls are predicting 26, in at the next general
election, then we can make Westminster dance to a Scottish jig
if we get a substantial block of 20 SNP MPs
and the latest polls are predicting 26, in at the next general
election, then we can make Westminster dance to a Scottish jig
.”
What would happen to the SNP in an independent Scotland?
“Oh, we would continue as a social democratic party with Scotland’s
interests at heart but there would be plenty of other choices. The
lesson of devolution in the Scottish Parliament is that PR has opened
up choice for people.
What would the political make-up of an independent Scotland be?
“Well, I think we would have a good shout of winning the first
election, and winning in the sense of being the largest party and not
having to look for allies but I think the parties who will flourish
will be the ones who adjust quickest to the changed circumstances.”
What would the leader of that country be called?
“I would be quite happy with the title of First Minister. It’s not
something that enters into the calculations but I think we’ll just
stick with First Minister. People are used to it and I like it.”
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