Cochrane's Scotland: The SNP owe Alex Salmond, so they can't disown him even if they dislike him

Alex Salmond may have suspended his appearances on Vladimir Putin’s Russia Today channel but, at time of writing, he has still not uttered a word of criticism about his paymaster’s invasion of Ukraine.

There is no doubt in my mind that this glaring omission will damage both the SNP and also the cause of Scottish independence because although Salmond resigned from the SNP four years ago and formed his own Alba party, he is still the man most people associate with the plan to break up Britain.

As a result many voters reckon that, given their former love-in with Wee Eck, to use the former Scottish first minister’s least favourite nickname, any attacks by the SNP on Putin are judged - rightly or wrongly - to be ‘hypocritical’ at best and phoney at worse.

Ian Blackford, the SNP’s Westminster leader, found this out in the Commons when he tried to attack Boris Johnson for allowing a ‘sewer of dirty Russian money’ to flow through London. The Prime Minister turned the tables on him by denouncing Salmond’s Russian connections.

Blackford is universally disliked by Tories and Labour MPs and even among the 48-strong SNP group at Westminster a show of hands wouldn’t see all of them backing this former investment banker. However, at Question Time this week, he looked to have found a rich seam of insults to hurl at Boris Johnson.

But no sooner had he got into his stride than he was knocked back on his heels by claims that the SNP had no grounds for attacking anyone over Russian links, given that Alex Salmond had a weekly chat show on Vladimir Putin’s megaphone to the rest of the world

While all nationalists everywhere may be suffering ‘by association’ with Wee Eck I haven’t a shred of sympathy for their claim that he no longer represents the SNP in any shape or form. That, of course, may be technically accurate but what they choose to forget is that they worshipped at the feet of this High Priest of nationalism for long enough - decades, in fact - and many still yearn for the days when he was leader.

However, I confess to feeling a wee bit sorry for the Skye and Lochaber MP because of the fact that he and Salmond have actually been deep-dyed political enemies for as long as I can remember - certainly more than 20 years.

At the root of their enmity is, as is often the case in politics, money. Back in the bad old days, as they’d see it, of Scottish nationalism the SNP was in dire straits, financially as well as electorally. In the years before the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 they had what passed for a headquarters in a warren of fairly grotty offices on two floors in Edinburgh’s New Town - ironically only a stone’s throw from the Georgian splendour of Bute House, the First Minister’s official residence in Charlotte Square, where Salmond was in residence for seven years until he lost the 2014 referendum and where Nicola Sturgeon has lived ever since.

But back then, in the Eighties and Nineties, they had no money; not a red cent.

And so they turned to a certain Ian Blackford, then a well-heeled executive with Deutsche Bank, to sort things. As Treasurer he sought to get the party back on an even keel financially by first of all cutting all unnecessary expenditure. He sold the headquarters building, moving things to a couple of just-as-grotty-rooms in a very cheap part of town but also - and this is where the enmity arose - cutting the expense accounts of party officials.

In particular, he challenged the amount of cash he alleged that Salmond, the party leader, had been claiming for taxis. Salmond and Blackford's internecine war survives to this day.

And so, when Tory and Labour politicians attack Alex Salmond, they get not a word of argument from Ian Blackford. But he, like most MPs and MSPs who’ve been elected to either Holyrood or the Commons, should remember that Wee Eck is responsible, more than anyone, for putting nationalism on the political map and for getting them elected.

They cannot re-write history. Wee Eck helped make them what they are today.

Half-baked Salmond

Talking of Salmond - and who isn’t in Scotland - one of the minor heroes of the recent political attacks on him over his appearances on Putin’s favourite TV channel was Jamie Stone, the Lib Dem MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, who delivered a withering denunciation of the poster-boy of nationalism.

To cheers from all around the Commons chamber, Stone, the elder son of a family of cheese-makers from Tain, in Ross-shire, said it was an "absolute disgrace" that Salmond was allowed to broadcast his "half-baked opinions" on Russian television. It was a brilliant performance and well deserving of the large glass of Chenin Blanc - his favourite tipple - that I shall buy him when next we meet.

Gove puts in the miles

Over the years too many London ministers have sought to opt out of appearing before committees of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Holyrood. They’ve come up with all sorts of excuses - some of them almost schoolboy-ish in their pathetic tone: It hasn’t quite been: "I’ve got a note from my mum, saying I’m not well", but not far off.

Not Michael Gove - when he was asked to appear before Holyrood’s finance committee this week he didn’t try to get out of it, nor did he say he’d only do it by Zoom. He hopped on the first plane and flew up to Edinburgh, where he gave one of the assured performances that we’ve come to expect of the Levelling-up Minister.

What I haven’t, at time of writing, discovered is whether he managed to take in any discos in Edinburgh during his brief visit. Perhaps they’re not as exciting as those in which he’s previously starred in his native Aberdeen.

Droning on in the Firth

Whatever will they think of next? That was my immediate reaction to the research by Aberdeen University scientists who have come up with what seems like a brilliant method of working out if bottlenose dolphins are pregnant. The answer to my immediate question of ‘why do they need to know this?’ is that there has been concern for some time that those amazing creatures may have suffered from harassment from boat owners in the Moray Firth.

Tourists have apparently been urging the skippers to get as close as possible to the dolphins so as to get the best pictures and the researchers wanted to know if this was affecting the mammals’ health - in particular whether it might have damaged their reproductive urges.

And so, they’re now flying drones over the pods which can tell them which dolphins are healthy and putting on weight through being pregnant. Incredible, don’t you think?