Ross Lydall: Salmond's flying visit is almost lost for words
IT's a long way to travel for 71 words. Alex Salmond made it down to Westminster yesterday to contribute his tuppence-worth to the SNP/Plaid Cymru motion to dissolve Parliament in the wake of the expenses scandal etc etc.
It was his first contribution to a Commons debate for a couple of months - the last being on 27 April 2009, during the Budget debate (not more than a year ago, as I mistakenly said previously).
Was yesterday's contribution worth the air fare? Mr Salmond intervened on Welsh Secretary Peter Hain to boast about a 10 per cent increase in the SNP's vote in last week's European elections, which the First Minister said was a "resounding endorsement of the SNP government in Scotland".
That was it - though Mr Salmond did hang around until 7pm to vote with his six SNP chums. However the SNP motion rather backfired as the government ended up with a majority of 72, larger than Labour's working majority of 63.
To Mr Salmond's credit, though, he did make the effort to turn up, unlike David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown - yes, the self-same Prime Minister so keen to put Parliament at the centre of British political life, though not so keen to spend time there himself.
It was his first contribution to a Commons debate for a couple of months - the last being on 27 April 2009, during the Budget debate (not more than a year ago, as I mistakenly said previously).
Was yesterday's contribution worth the air fare? Mr Salmond intervened on Welsh Secretary Peter Hain to boast about a 10 per cent increase in the SNP's vote in last week's European elections, which the First Minister said was a "resounding endorsement of the SNP government in Scotland".
That was it - though Mr Salmond did hang around until 7pm to vote with his six SNP chums. However the SNP motion rather backfired as the government ended up with a majority of 72, larger than Labour's working majority of 63.
To Mr Salmond's credit, though, he did make the effort to turn up, unlike David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown - yes, the self-same Prime Minister so keen to put Parliament at the centre of British political life, though not so keen to spend time there himself.
Labels: Alex Salmond, Ross Lydall
posted by Administrator at
13:10
3 Comments:
Sorry, Ross, but this is rather a pathetic posting. What on earth forces a journalist to take the trouble to count Salmond's words . You'd have a helluva job counting the words in Anne McGuire's aria of hatred. This is the kind of pointless exercise I'd expect from the more silly unionist posters on the Scotsman threads.
I disagree. He's wasting money and emitting carbon for next to no purpose. The irony is he could have resigned from Westminster during the SNP's real honeymoon and got another bounce from a new SNP byelection victor. Isn't there someone competent and ambitious in his local party?
James,
The SNP's real honeymoon? When did it end?
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