First Minister Alex Salmond has ruled out entering into a coalition government should the SNP Government be re-elected next year.

In an exclusive interview with Holyrood magazine Salmond says that despite the bruising experience of minority government a coalition would have to be “forced” upon him.

He said:

“I haven’t had the experience of a coalition and I shouldn’t knock it when I’ve never tried it but I suppose you have to make a judgement on these things and could I really have been in a coalition with Tavish Scott or indeed when I take a glance across the Chamber to Mike Rumbles and wonder if that would work…no, I think I would stick with what I know.”

Salmond also lashed out at the tribal nature of politics in Scotland at present, arguing that opposition parties have “lost the ability to differentiate from what they like and dislike.”

There are some issues, even in this Parliament, that he says should be about “what is right rather than who is right” and he criticised the opposition parties’ “desperate” attempts to knock the SNP off its perch.

“I have to confess that my own view is that politics conducted at that level would better not being conducted at all.  Do I think that people, who conduct at that level, are held in respect by the wider community?  No, I don’t.  I think they will pay a heavy price for the sub-heading but I would really like to get into a position where certain issues were regarded as underlying difficulties and problems of Scottish society and if any of the opposition parties could find themselves in a position to respond to, let’s say, the issue of alcohol in Scotland the way that the SNP responded to Jack McConnell’s initiative on smoking, then I think the Scottish Parliament would be held in higher esteem.”