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 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
Image: 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.
Image: 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.
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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.
Image: 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.
Image: 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.
Image: 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.
Image: Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon pictured in May 2013 while launching a paper on the economic case for independence. Pic: PA
Image: 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.
Image: 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.
Image: 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.
Image: 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”.
Image: 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.
Image: 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.
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.”
A “significant number” of countries will provide troops to a Ukraine peacekeeping force, Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman said.
On Saturday, leaders from 26 Western countries – plus two EU leaders and NATO’s secretary general – gathered for a virtual call of the “coalition of the willing”, hosted by Sir Keir after Volodymyr Zelenskyy accepted a 30-day interim ceasefire agreement.
The prime minister said military chiefs would meet this Thursday to discuss the next “operational phase” in protecting Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force – if a deal can be agreed with Russia.
Speaking on Monday, Sir Keir’s spokesman said they now expect “more than 30” countries to be involved in the coalition – but did not reveal which other countries had joined since Saturday.
He added: “The contribution capabilities will vary, but this will be a significant force, with a significant number of countries providing troops and a larger group contributing in other ways.”
The spokesman did not say which countries agreed to be part of a peacekeeping force, which Sir Keir and French leader Emmanuel Macron have confirmed the UK and France will be part of.
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What could a peacekeeping force actually do?
Could troops end up fighting?
Russia has repeatedly said it would not accept soldiers from NATO countries being stationed in Ukraine.
Asked if British troops fired on by Russia in Ukraine would be allowed to fire back, the spokesman said: “It’s worth remembering that Russia didn’t ask Ukraine when it deployed troops.
“We’ve got operational planning meetings that they are going through.”
The spokesman also said he did not know if the US – notably absent from the coalition – will be joining the military chiefs’ meeting on Thursday, but said the UK is having “regular discussions with our American counterparts”.
Both the UK and France are pushing for the US to provide security guarantees to prevent Russia from reneging on any peace deal with Ukraine.
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Which nations will join peacekeeping efforts?
Trump and Putin to hold talks
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he supports the truce brokered by the US in Saudi Arabia, but “lots of questions” remain over the proposals.
Donald Trump said on Sunday night he will speak to Mr Putin on Tuesday about ending the war and negotiators have already discussed “dividing up certain assets”, including land and power plants.
He said a “lot of work” had been done over the weekend on a peace deal.
The leaders involved in Saturday’s call were from: Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, and the UK.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU Council President Antonio Costa also joined.
Since taking office nine months ago Sir Keir Starmer has weathered party rows about winter fuel payments, the two child benefit cap, WASPI women, airport expansion and cuts to international aid.
All of these decisions have been justified in the name of balancing the books – filling that notorious £22bn black hole, sticking to the fiscal rules, and in the pursuit of growth as the government’s number one priority.
But welfare reform feels like a far more existential row.
Ministers have been making the point for weeks that the health benefits bill for working-age people has ballooned by £20bn since the pandemic and is set to grow by another £18bn over the next five years, to £70bn.
But the detail of where those cuts could fall is proving highly divisive.
Not the final version perhaps – but given all backbench Labour MPs who were summoned to meetings with the Number 10 policy teams for briefings this week, that response is perhaps more than a little disingenuous.
In his interview with Sir Trevor Phillips, he went on to make the broader case for PIP reform – highlighting the thousand people who sign up to the benefit every day and arguing that the system needs to be “sustainable”, to “deliver for those that need it most” and “provide the right kind of support for the different types of need that exist”.
To me this signals the government are preparing to unveil a tighter set of PIP eligibility criteria, with a refocus on supporting those with the greatest needs.
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Liz Bates: Will there be a backlash over benefits?
Changes to incapacity benefit to better incentivise working – for those who can – are also clearly on the cards.
The health secretary has been hitting out at the “overdiagnosis” of mental health conditions, arguing that “going out to work is better for your mental and physical health, than being spent and being stuck at home”, and promising benefit reforms that will help support people back to work rather than “trapped in the benefits system”.
Turning Tory?
Starmer said this week the current welfare system couldn’t be defended on economic or moral grounds.
The Conservatives don’t disagree.
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Conservatives: Scrapping NHS England is ‘right thing’
Before the election, they proposed £12bn in cuts to the welfare bill, with a focus on getting people on long-term sickness back to work.
This morning, shadow education secretary Laura Trott claimed Labour denied that welfare cuts were needed during the election campaign and had wasted time in failing to include benefits reform in the King’s Speech.
“They’re coming to this chaotically, too late and without a plan,” she said.
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Notwithstanding the obvious critique that the Tories had 14 years to get a grip on the situation – what’s most striking here is that, yet again, the Labour government seems to be borrowing Conservative clothes.
When challenged by Sir Trevor this morning, Streeting denied they were turning Tory – claiming the case for welfare reform and supporting people into work is a Labour argument.
But, from increasing defence spending and cutting the aid budget to scrapping NHS England, there’s a definite pattern emerging.
If you didn’t know a Labour administration was in charge, you might have assumed these were the policies of a Conservative government.
It’s a strategy which makes many of his own backbenchers deeply uncomfortable.
But it’s doing a good job of neutering the Tory opposition.
The new Sky News and Politico podcast Politics At Sam And Anne’s launches today, with Anne McElvoy replacing Jack Blanchard as Sam Coates’s co-host.
The political podcast will be available from 7.30am Monday to Thursday and will see Coates, Sky News’ deputy political editor, and McElvoy, Politico’s executive editor, unpack everything there is to know about the day ahead in Westminster.
Each instalment of the award-winning podcast will give audiences the latest insight into British politics in no more than 20 minutes.
The podcast originally launched in September 2023 with Jack Blanchard – Politico’s former UK editor, and now author of Politico’s DC Playbook.
McElvoy’s arrival comes after a successful year for the podcast as it was recently recognised at the inaugural Political Podcast Awards and credited for its “must-know political insight”.
Coates, who won Presenter of the Year at the 2025 Political Podcast Awards, said: “Having Anne on board as my new full-time co-host is hugely exciting.
“With her phenomenal multi-decade background in domestic and international affairs, Anne is best in class at dissecting how events around the world are shaping Westminster.
“By combining Politico’s incredible depth and Sky’s ability to cut through the noise, we are well placed to continue providing unrivalled analysis and the latest scoops to our informed Westminster audience.”
McElvoy said: “Sam’s boundless energy, deep cross-party knowledge and a shared delight in informed conversation on the topics and characters shaping politics make even our early morning recordings fun.
“Our mission remains delivering the unmissable first podcast of the day for and about Westminster. We will explore the news moments that matter, offer our own insights and spontaneous exchanges and preview events that shape our political world.”
David Rhodes, executive chairman of Sky News, said the podcast was “the go-to source for people who work in Westminster and beyond”.
He said: “It provides an unparalleled service, giving a community of highly engaged listeners the full story, first each morning on what’s happening in politics.”