The Tories and Liberal Democrats yesterday tried to undermine Alex Salmond's New Year by demanding he resign from Westminster to fight the Scottish elections. In what promises to be a running theme of the campaign, the SNP leader was accused of trying to become a "part-time" MSP.
Mr Salmond is standing for Holyrood in the Gordon constituency, but is not giving up his Banff & Buchan seat at Westminster to do so. He was re-elected to Westminster in 2005 and has said he will serve out a full term even if elected elsewhere.
Now it may well be the case that if Mr Salmond were returned to Holyrood, either as MSP for Gordon or as a list MSP, and secured the job of First Minister, he might resign as the Westminster MP for Banff & Buchan. But to announce that in advance would suggest that he was keeping his options open until after the election, thus implying that he thought that there were circumstances in which he might not become First Minister. Because if that proved to be the case, he might not fancy a wearisome stint as leader of the Holyrood opposition. And he did opt for Westminster last time round.
On the other hand, retaining his Westminster option will give his opponents the opportunity to suggest that he is not wholly committed to the Scottish Parliament and that he is not wholly confident of winning the election.
More to come, I expect.
1 comment:
This is Salmond's obvious achilles heel, but the LibDem attack is blunted when you bear in mind that Donald Gorrie pulled a similar stunt in 1999: at that time, he was MP for Edinburgh West, but was elected as a Central Scotland Regional MSP.
Strangely, The Herald didn't pick up on this. Perhaps their researcher had a hangover.
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