Obituary: The political titan that was former first minister of Scotland Alex Salmond
Alex Salmond has died at the age of 69.
Love or loathe Mr Salmond – who was described as a “Marmite man” during his high-profile court case – few would dispute his skill and achievements as a politician.
Under the leadership of the keen golfer and horse racing fan, the SNP rose to power and became a titan party north of the border.
Some would argue if it were not for the political talent of Mr Salmond, there would have been no Scottish independence referendum at all in 2014.
Mr Salmond. File pic: AP
As the tributes flood in following his death, we take a look at the man who was once first minister of Scotland.
Mr Salmond was first elected to Westminster in 1987 as the SNP MP for Banff and Buchan – a position he retained until 2010.
In 1990, he successfully defeated Margaret Ewing in the SNP leadership contest and would go on to campaign for Scottish devolution in 1997.
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Mr Salmond’s speech after becoming SNP leader in 1990
Mr Salmond after speaking at the SNP party conference in 1997. Pic: Reuters
In 1999, after the establishment of the Scottish Parliament as a result of devolution, he led his party through the first Scottish parliament election and became MSP for Banff and Buchan as well as leader of the opposition – with Labour in power.
John Swinney, Nicola Sturgeon, Alex Salmond and Mike Russell in 1999. Pic: PA
A year later, Mr Salmond quit as SNP leader amid a series of high-profile fallouts with party members and was replaced by current first minister John Swinney.
In 2001, he then stood down from Holyrood in order to lead the SNP group at Westminster.
Following a disastrous 2004 European parliament election for the SNP, Mr Swinney stepped aside as party leader with Mr Salmond re-elected with overwhelming support from the party’s members.
Following a highly effective campaign in the 2007 Scottish election, the SNP gained 20 seats, giving the party a total of 47 seats in Holyrood – one more than Scottish Labour.
Mr Salmond and his wife Moira leaving the Scottish parliament chamber after he was elected as first minister in 2007. Pic: Reuters
Although the party didn’t have an overall majority, new Gordon MSP Mr Salmond became first minister of Scotland in 2007.
The late Queen Elizabeth II and Mr Salmond at Holyroodhouse in 2007. Pic: PA
In the 2011 Scottish elections, the SNP secured the first outright majority in the history of the Scottish parliament, and Mr Salmond won a second term as first minister while MSP for the new constituency of Aberdeenshire East.
Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon launching the White Paper in 2013. Pic: PA
In 2012, Mr Salmond signed an agreement with then British prime minister David Cameron to hold a referendum on Scottish independence in 2014.
Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon pictured in May 2013 while launching a paper on the economic case for independence. Pic: PA
Then first minister Mr Salmond on polling day in 2014. Pic: PA
The historic event – which would have seen Scotland break away from the rest of the UK – took place on 18 September 2014 and saw more than two million people (55.3%) vote No and 1.6 million (44.7%) vote Yes.
Following the defeat, Mr Salmond stepped down as first minister and SNP leader and was replaced by Nicola Sturgeon.
In an interview with Sky News to mark the 10th anniversary of the independence referendum, Mr Salmond said he started to write his concession speech when the first result was declared.
Mr Salmond following the Scottish independence referendum. Pic: PA
Mr Salmond returned to the Commons as MP for Gordon in the 2015 general election but was ousted in the 2017 election by Conservative Colin Clark.
The loss marked the first time since 1987 that Mr Salmond was not in an elected position at either Westminster or Holyrood.
Mr Salmond would go on to launch The Alex Salmond Show on RT, the former Russia Today channel editorially controlled and funded by the Russian government.
Mr Salmond was criticised by Scottish politicians over the decision to host it on RT, with Ms Sturgeon saying she would have advised against it.
Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh with Mr Salmond last year. Pic: PA
The show, which also featured Mr Salmond’s protege Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, was suspended following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Not to be stopped, a new show titled Scotland Speaks with Alex Salmond launched a year later via Turkish public broadcaster TRT. The first episode featured an interview with Hollywood actor Brian Cox.
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Sky News’ Scotland correspondent Connor Gillies speaks about Mr Salmond’s career
Before that, however, Mr Salmond resigned from the SNP in August 2018 in the face of allegations of sexual misconduct while first minister.
Mr Salmond said he wanted to avoid internal division within the party amid calls to suspend him.
Denying any wrongdoing, Mr Salmond vowed to re-join the SNP once he had an opportunity to clear his name.
Mr Salmond went on to take the Scottish government to court to challenge the complaints procedure which had been activated against him.
The investigation was deemed by a judicial review to have been “tainted by apparent bias”, with Mr Salmond awarded £512,000 as a result.
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In January 2019, Mr Salmond was arrested by Police Scotland and charged with 14 offences, including two counts of attempted rape, nine sexual assaults, two indecent assaults, and one breach of the peace.
In March 2020, Mr Salmond was cleared of all charges. A jury found him not guilty of 12 charges, one charge was dropped by prosecutors during the trial, while another charge was found not proven.
Mr Salmond arriving at the High Court in Glasgow in 2020. Pic: PA
During a procedural hearing of the case, reporting of which was banned until the end of the trial, Mr Salmond’s defence team claimed the Scottish government and those working there turned to the criminal process to try to “discredit” him after he won the civil case into how the administration handled sexual harassment complaints against him.
Details heard during the trial were devastating to Mr Salmond’s public image, with allegations of bullying and demanding behaviour.
Defence advocate Gordon Jackson KC put it to the court that Mr Salmond was a “touchy-feely kind of person”.
Jurors heard details of inappropriate behaviour, including Mr Salmond admitting that he had a “sleepy cuddle” with one complainer and sexual contact with two complainers, neither of them his wife, Moira.
In his closing speech, Mr Jackson described his client as a “Marmite man” as well as someone who “could have been a better man”.
Two subsequent inquiries into the conduct of ministers and officials saw Mr Salmond asserting his belief that many in his former party had colluded against him in an effort to block any final return to frontline politics.
After being cleared, Mr Salmond vowed that evidence of a plot to discredit him would “see the light of day”.
Ms Sturgeon and Mr Salmond during happier times in their friendship. Pic: PA
While once great friends, the sexual harassment allegations and subsequent court case led to the breakdown of Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon’s relationship.
Mr Salmond did not return to the SNP and instead launched rival Alba Party in 2021.
Mr Salmond was leader of the Alba Party. Pic: PA
He has often been critical of his successors, Ms Sturgeon, Humza Yousaf and Mr Swinney.
When Ms Sturgeon quit as first minister in 2023, Mr Salmond told Sky News that the SNP had “no obvious successor”.
Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon in 2011. Pic: PA
While speaking during an Edinburgh Fringe event later that year, Mr Salmond refused to rule out a reconciliation with Ms Sturgeon and said it would be “sad” if they remained on poor terms.
Despite not achieving his dream, Mr Salmond never wavered in his belief that Scotland would be better as an independent country.
In one of his final interviews with Sky News, he said: “I don’t say that Scotland would be a land of milk and honey, but we would be a land of oil, gas and renewables and that would stand us in good stead.”
The last blast furnaces left operating in Britain could see their fate sealed within days, after their Chinese owners took the decision to cut off the crucial supply of ingredients keeping them running.
Jingye, the owner of British Steel in Scunthorpe, has, according to union representatives, cancelled future orders for the iron ore, coal and other raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running.
The upshot is that they may have to close next month – even sooner than the earliest date suggested for its closure.
Read more: Thousands of jobs at risk as British Steel consults unions over closure
The fate of the blast furnaces – the last two domestic sources of virgin steel, made from iron ore rather than recycled – is likely to be determined in a matter of days, with the Department for Business and Trade now actively pondering nationalisation.
The upshot is that even as Britain contends with a trade war across the Atlantic, it is now working against the clock to secure the future of steelmaking at Scunthorpe.
The talks between the government and Jingye broke down last week after the Chinese company, which bought British Steel out of receivership in 2020, rejected a £500m offer of public money to replace the existing furnaces with electric arc furnaces.
The sum is the same one it offered to Tata Steel, which has shut down the other remaining UK blast furnaces in Port Talbot and is planning to build electric furnaces – which have far lower carbon emissions.
These steel workers could soon be out of work
However, the owners argue that the amount is too little to justify extra investment at Scunthorpe, and said last week they were now consulting on the date of shutting both the blast furnaces and the attached steelworks.
Since British Steel is the main provider of steel rails to Network Rail – as well as other construction steels available from only a few sites in the world – the closure would leave the UK more reliant on imports for critical infrastructure sites.
However, since the site belongs to its Chinese owners, a decision to nationalise the site would involve radical steps government officials are wary of taking.
They also fear leaving taxpayers exposed to a potentially loss-making business for the long run.
The dilemma has been heightened by the sharp turn in geopolitical sentiment following Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
The incipient trade war and threatened cut in American support to Europe have sparked fresh calls for countries to act urgently to secure their own supplies of critical materials, especially those used for defence and infrastructure.
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Gareth Stace, head of UK Steel, the industry lobby group, said: “Talks seem to have broken down between government and British Steel.
“My advice to government is: please, Jonathan Reynolds, Business Secretary, get back round that negotiating table, thrash out a deal, and if a deal can’t be found in the next few days, then I fear for the very future of the sector, but also here for Scunthorpe steelworks.”
British Steel declined to comment.
UK
Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace branded ‘crude attempt to enrich himself’ as Chinese spy documents set to be released
Prince Andrew’s efforts to make money from his Pitch@Palace project have been branded as a “crude attempt to enrich himself” at the expense of “unsuspecting tech founders”, as new documents may shed more light on what he and his team have been attempting to sell.
Today is the deadline for documents to be released relating to Prince Andrew‘s former senior adviser Dominic Hampshire and his interactions with the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo.
In February, an immigration tribunal heard how the intelligence services had contacted Mr Hampshire about Mr Yang back in 2022. Mr Yang helped set up Pitch@Palace China, a branch of the duke’s scheme to help young entrepreneurs.
The alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo, has links with Prince Andrew
Yang Tengbo. Pic: Pitch@Palace
Judges banned Mr Yang from the UK, saying his association with a senior royal had made Prince Andrew “vulnerable” and posed a threat to national security. Mr Yang challenged that decision at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).
Since that hearing, media organisations have applied for certain documents relating to the case and Mr Hampshire’s support for Mr Yang to be made public. SIAC agreed to release some information of public interest. It is hoped they may include more details on deals that he was trying to do on behalf of Prince Andrew.
So what do we know about potential deals for Pitch@Palace so far?
In February, Sky News confirmed that palace officials had a meeting last summer with tech funding company StartupBootcamp to discuss a potential tie-up between them and Prince Andrew relating to his Pitch@Palace project.
The palace wasn’t involved in the fine details of a deal but wanted guarantees to make sure it wouldn’t impact the Royal Family in the future. Sky News understands from one source that the price being discussed for Pitch was around £750,000 – there are, however, reports that a deal may have stalled.
Photos we found on the Chinese Chamber of Commerce website show an event held in Asia between StartupBootcamp and Innovate Global, believed to be an offshoot of Pitch.
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Who is alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo?
Documents, released in relation to the investigations into Mr Tengbo, have also shown how much the duke has always seen Pitch as a way of potentially making money. One document from 21 August 2021 clearly states “the duke needed money at the time, and saw the relationships with China through Pitch as one possible source of funding”.
But Prince Andrew’s apparent intention to use Pitch to make money has led to concerns about whether he is unfairly using the contacts and information he gained when he was a working royal.
Norman Baker, former MP and author of books on royal finances, believes it is “a crude attempt to enrich himself” and goes against what the tech entrepreneurs thought they were signing up for.
Read more:
Who is Yang Tenbo?
Virginia Giuffre says she has days to live
Emails between Andrew and Epstein revealed
He told Sky News: “The data given by these business people was given on the basis it was an official operation and not something for Prince Andrew, and so in my view, Prince Andrew had no right legally or morally to take the data which has been collected, a huge amount of data, and sell it…
“And quite clearly if you’re going to sell it off to StartupBootcamp, that is not what people had in mind. The entrepreneurs who joined Pitch@Palace did not do so to enrich Prince Andrew,” he said.
Rich Wilson was one tech entrepreneur who was approached at the start of Pitch@Palace to sign up, but he stepped away when he spotted a clause in the contract saying they’d be entitled to 2% equity in any funding he secured.
He feels Prince Andrew is continuing to use those he made a show of supporting.
He said: “It makes me feel sick. I think it’s terrible – that he is continuing to exploit unsuspecting tech founders in this way. A lot of them, I’m quite grey and old in the tooth now, I saw it coming, but clearly most didn’t. And a lot of them were quite young.
“It’ll be their first venture and you’re learning on the trot, so to speak. So to take advantage of people in such a major way – that’s an awful, sickening thing to do.”
We approached StartupBootcamp who said they had no comment to make, and the Duke of York’s office did not respond.
With reports that a deal may have stalled, it could be a big setback for the duke – especially with questions still about how he’ll continue to pay for his home on the Windsor estate now that the King no longer gives him financial support.
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