Alex Salmond

The Rt Hon Alex Salmond MP MSP
4th First Minister of Scotland
Incumbent
Assumed office 16 May, 2007
Deputy	Nicola Sturgeon (2007-)
Preceded by	Jack McConnell
Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP)
Incumbent
Assumed office (2004-09-03)September 3, 2004
Preceded by	John Swinney
In office (1990-09-22)September 22, 1990 – (2000-09-26)September 26, 2000
Preceded by	Gordon Wilson
Succeeded by	John Swinney
Member of Parliament for Banff and Buchan
Incumbent
Assumed office (1987-06-11)June 11, 1987
Preceded by	Albert McQuarrie
Majority	11,837 (31.8%)
Member of the Scottish Parliament for Gordon
Incumbent
Assumed office (2007-05-03)May 3, 2007
Preceded by	Nora Radcliffe
Majority	2,062 (5.8%)
Personal details
Born	(1954-12-31) 31 December 1954 Linlithgow, United Kingdom
Political party	Scottish National Party
Website	http://www.snp.org/people/alex

Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond, known as Alex Salmond (born December 31, 1954, Linlithgow), is a British politician, and the current First Minister of Scotland, heading a minority government.

He is Leader of the separatist Scottish National Party (SNP), Member of Parliament for the constituency of Banff and Buchan, and the Member of the Scottish Parliament for Gordon.

He is currently serving his second term as leader of the SNP, taking over from John Swinney. He had previously been leader between 1990 and 2000.

The SNP won by the smallest of margins (47 seats, 1 more than the Scottish Labour Party) in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election. On 16th May 2007, Alex Salmond was nominated to become First Minister, heading a minority SNP administration, by 49 votes to 46. The Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives abstained. The Greens supported him.

Education and career before politics

Born in Linlithgow, West Lothian, Salmond is the son of Robert Fyfe Findlay Salmond and Mary Stewart Salmond (nee Milne), both of whom were civil servants. Salmond was educated at Linlithgow Academy [1] and the University of St Andrews, where he graduated with an MA in Economics and History. He was first employed as an assistant economist in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland from 1978.

In 1980, he joined the Royal Bank of Scotland, for which he worked until 1987, first as an assistant economist, then as the Oil Economist and latterly as Royal Bank Economist. While with the Royal Bank, he wrote and broadcast extensively for both domestic and international outlets. He also contributed regularly to oil and energy conferences. In 1983, he devised the “Royal Bank / BBC Oil Index”, which continues monthly publication to this day.

Early political career

Salmond became active in the SNP when he joined the Federation of Student Nationalists at St Andrews University in 1973 whilst a student at St Andrews. As a left-winger at the time he joined, he had considerable doubts as to whether or not the Labour Party would legislate for a devolved Scottish Assembly.

Expulsion and re-admission

Salmond started his political life as a committed left-winger inside the SNP and was a leading member of the socialist republican organisation within it, the 79 Group. He was, along with other group leaders, suspended from membership of the SNP when the 79 Group was banned within the larger party. In 1981, he married Moira French McGlashan (born 1937), a senior civil servant with the Scottish Office.

Following the SNP's National Council narrowly voting to uphold the expulsion, Salmond and the others were allowed back into the party a month later, and in 1985 he was elected as the SNP's Vice Convener for Publicity.

First time at Westminster

In 1987 he was elected Member of Parliament for Banff and Buchan, Scotland, and later that year became Senior Vice Convener (Deputy Leader) of the SNP. He was at this time still viewed as being firmly on the left of the party and had become a key ally of Jim Sillars, who joined him in the British House of Commons when he won a by-election for the seat of Glasgow Govan in 1988. Salmond served as a member of the House of Commons Energy Select Committee 1987-1992.

First time as SNP leader

When Gordon Wilson stood down as SNP leader in 1990, Salmond decided to contest the leadership. His only opponent was Margaret Ewing, whom Sillars decided to support. This caused considerable consternation amongst the SNP left as the two main left leaders were opposing each other in the contest. It was also around this time that Salmond and Sillars drifted apart. Salmond went on to win the leadership election by 486 votes to Ewing's 146.

His first test as leader was the United Kingdom general election in 1992, with the SNP having high hopes of making an electoral breakthrough. However the party, whilst considerably increasing its vote, failed to win a large number of seats; Sillars lost his, causing him to famously describe the Scottish people as '90 minute patriots'. This comment ended the political friendship between Salmond and Sillars, and Sillars would soon become a vocal critic of Salmond's style of leadership.

Devolution

The SNP managed to increase its number of MPs from four to six in the 1997 General Election, which saw a landslide victory for the Labour Party. After election, Labour legislated for a devolved Scottish parliament in Edinburgh.

Although still committed to a fully independent Scotland, Salmond signed the SNP up to supporting the campaign for devolution, and along with Scottish Labour leader Donald Dewar played an active part in securing the victory for devolution in the Scotland referendum of 1997. However, many hard line fundamentalists in the SNP objected to committing the party to devolution, as it was short of full political Scottish independence.

Salmond's first spell as leader was characterised by a moderation of his earlier left-wing views and by his firmly placing the SNP into a gradualist, but still pro-independence, strategy.

Kosovo

Salmond was one of the few British politicians to oppose the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 . He was opposed to the conflict because it was not authorised by a United Nations Security Council resolution, which was a controversial subject at the time. Despite this, Salmond was heavily criticised in the media for describing Tony Blair's decision to intervene militarily as an "unpardonable folly" .

High media profile

Several years as party leader earned Salmond an unusually high profile for an SNP politician in the London-based media, leading to invitations to take part in entertainment programmes such as Have I Got News For You and Call My Bluff. His appearances on the latter, and more specifically the fact that he held on to one of the famous 'bluff' cards that are used as props in the show as a souvenir, proved to have an unexpected significance in the run-up to the first elections to the Scottish Parliament. To counter his frustration at having to sit in silence through what he claimed was an inappropriately political speech by Tony Blair at a charity lunch, he held up the bluff card as the Prime Minister began querying Scotland's economic prospects should independence occur.

Resignation and time in Westminster

Salmond was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and was one of its highest profile members. He stood down as SNP leader in 2000 and was replaced by his preferred successor John Swinney, who defeated Alex Neil for the post.

In 2001 he left the Scottish Parliament to lead the SNP group in the House of Commons. During the prolonged parliamentary debates in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq he voiced strong opposition to Britain's participation.

In the aftermath of the war, he lent support to the attempt of Adam Price, a Plaid Cymru MP, to impeach Tony Blair over the Iraq issue. Salmond has gone further than many anti-war politicians in claiming that Blair's statements on the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq had been consciously intended to deceive the public.

Return as leader

In a surprise announcement on 15 July 2004, Alex Salmond announced that he would be a candidate in the forthcoming election for the leadership of the SNP (which arose after John Swinney's resignation). Salmond had previously said that he definitely would not be a candidate in that election, even claiming in jest that if he were elected he would resign. In the postal ballot of all members he went on to receive over 75% of the votes cast, placing him well ahead of his nearest rival Roseanna Cunningham.

Although he was re-elected in the United Kingdom general election of 2005, he made clear his intention to return to the Scottish Parliament at the Scottish parliamentary election, 2007, at which point he would take over the role of SNP group leader in the Parliament from his deputy Nicola Sturgeon.

2007 election

Salmond stood as a candidate for the Gordon constituency, which had been won in the 1999 and 2003 elections by Liberal Democrat Nora Radcliffe. Salmond defeated her with a margin of over two thousand votes, returning to the Scottish Parliament after six years' absence.

In the election on 3 May 2007, the SNP emerged as the largest party, winning 47 seats to Labour's 46. Following this close victory, Salmond's attempts to create a governing majority coalition with the Liberal Democrats and Scottish Green Party MSPs were unsuccessful, although the Greens agreed to support an SNP minority administration on finance and confidence issues.

First Minister

As a result, Salmond was forced to form a minority government on a "policy by policy" basis. He was duly elected as the Scottish Parliament's nominee for First Minister on 16 May 2007, and was sworn in on 17 May . He is the first nationalist politician to hold the office, following three Labour First Ministers: Donald Dewar, Henry McLeish and Jack McConnell. In order to concentrate on his new role as First Minister, Salmond stood down as the SNP group leader at Westminster and was replaced by Angus Robertson.

Following the decision of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) to refer the case of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi back for a second appeal against conviction, Dr Hans Köchler, UN-appointed observer at the Lockerbie trial, wrote on July 4, 2007 to First Minister, Alex Salmond, reiterating his call for a full and independent public inquiry of the Lockerbie case.

Köchler addressed his letter also to Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and to the Minister for Africa, Asia and the UN, Mark Malloch Brown.

Trivia

• In 1998, Salmond won the Spectator Award for Political strategist of the Year.
• Throughout his time in politics, Salmond has maintained his interest in horse racing, previously writing a weekly column for The Scotsman and appearing a number of times on Channel 4’s "The Morning Line".
• Mr. Salmond is a well-known supporter of Hearts and a keen golfer.

External links

• Alex Salmond MP official biography at the site of the SNP
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Alex Salmond MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - Alex Salmond MP
• The Public Whip - Alex Salmond MP
• BBC News - Alex Salmond profile

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