Alex Salmond has achieved the impossible, British politics will miss him and I will…

October 12, 2024, 10:32 PM

LBC’s Iain Dale reflects on the life of his friend and giant of British politics Alex Salmond.

The news of Alex Salmond’s death has come as a shock to everyone who knew him. I heard the news from my LBC boss while driving home on the M25.

I couldn’t believe it. Alex was such a force of nature, the kind of person you’d think could survive death, if you know what I mean.

The thought of him collapsing after giving a speech in North Macedonia is too terrible to contemplate.

I first interviewed Alex Salmond in 2008, when I spoke to him for a few hours for Total Politics magazine. The interview caused quite a storm when it was published, especially because he committed the treasonous act of claiming that Margaret Thatcher wasn’t all bad.

The Scottish media went into full ‘outrage mode’ and the story topped the Scottish news agenda for a few days. It was difficult for Salmond to maintain he had been misquoted because the interview is a verbatim transcript.

When I saw what happened I almost doubted my own recording, so I went back and checked that the transcript was 100% accurate. Fortunately – for me – it was. A few years later he told me he wondered if that was why he should resign. You can read the full interview HERE.

In 2015, after he lost the independence referendum and resigned as Scottish First Minister, he and I started talking on the phone weekly on LBC.

He absolutely loved it and was a natural. (Photo above in the LBC newsroom on its first day. Photo by Tim Humphrey).

He loved taking aggressive callers and enjoyed bantering in the studio with me. We never argued or argued, but I remember one particular show where we weren’t far off.

The show went so well that LBC subsequently offered him his own show on Sunday afternoon.

Doing a solo show didn’t really work. He lacked someone to bounce back from, and the show only lasted six months.

Alex didn’t take it well, but he is not one to wallow in self-pity and within months had set up his own production company with Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, and started presenting a weekly politics and interview show about the much-criticized Russia. Today, later RT.

Frankly, I was shocked that he would tarnish his reputation by taking Putin’s ruble, and he told him so in no uncertain terms. He was unrepentant, although to his credit he pulled the show on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

By then we had at least partially repaired relations when I contacted him after he was found not guilty of sexual harassment charges. That lawsuit would have brought most people out of the closet. The meanest things were said about him, but his resilience shone through.

He refused to be intimidated by the case, but when the verdict came, he was dignified and calm and did not take a victory lap.

By then he had been out of the political spotlight for some time, but after a stain on his character was removed, he decided to re-enter the political fray by forming a new pro-independence party, Alba. It generated far more publicity than votes, and it failed to produce any political breakthrough. Without Alex at the helm, it’s hard to see how it can survive.

Former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond has died aged 69

Salmond’s relationship with his former deputy and eventual successor as SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, had been on the rocks long before the sexual harassment trial.

The two became bitter enemies. My suspicion is that both parties said things about each other that they later regretted. But there was no way back.

Nicola Sturgeon told me she didn’t believe their friendship could ever be revived, and she didn’t seem to want it to.

I never quite believed that. Alex seemed more open to the prospect, but remained hypercritical of her until the end.

Even his most bitter political enemies cannot deny that Alex Salmond was a titan of both Scottish and British politics. It was he who led the SNP into government, after decades of semi-irrelevance.

It was he who was more eloquent than anyone else in putting forward the argument for independence. It was he who achieved the impossible and led the SNP to an overall majority in 2011. He was prime minister for eleven years and convinced a conservative prime minister to organize a referendum.

It was a referendum in which he came closer to victory than most had predicted. I remember broadcasting from a hangar in Edinburgh that evening and seeing the photo of Alex being expelled from his count as soon as the result was known.

He was ashen. The next day I was on air when news of his firing came through. It was the end of a remarkable political journey.

For the past three years I have invited Alex to be part of my Edinburgh Fringe show. He always attracted a good crowd. I was so disappointed this year that I couldn’t host the show myself.

Instead, Matthew Stadlen intervened, and I’ll upload that to my ‘Iain Dale All Talk’ podcast feed on Monday. Last year he and David Davis appeared jointly, partly to publicize their own Fringe show, which consisted of a series of House of Commons-style debates on the big issues of the day.

I came second in a debate about Brexit. Alex suggested to David and I: “Please extend a warm welcome to the Dastardly and Mutley of the Leave campaign.” The audience roared with laughter and so did we.

The last time I saw Alex was in May this year when we were both on the BBC Question Time panel in Aberdeen.

Typically, Alex stole the show by showing up late and taking his seat on the panel after the taping had started. I really enjoyed the banter we had during the program, and so did the live audience.

At the end of the show we went backstage where there was a dinner buffet. I chatted with Alex for quite a while, and as always he was incredibly entertaining, but also very concerned about my health.

But his first priority at the end of the show was to call his wife Moira. He wanted to reassure her that he would be home soon.

Then he handed the phone to me and said, “Here, talk to your biggest fan. She loves your voice.” And Moira and I chatted for a few minutes as if we had known each other for years.

And it is Moira who is most on my mind as I write this. It’s horrible to lose your husband at any time, but to lose him this way, when he died thousands of miles away, is an added cruelty. I’m sure family and friends are taking care of her, but I would like to give her a hug.

I can’t quite believe I’ll never see Alex again. I’ll never see that cheeky twinkle in his eye when he thinks of another way to turn me on.

But I will always remember the way he contributed to the quality of our political life. He was the most brilliant debater. He was a great political strategist and an excellent interviewee.

Alex loved hearing about my Scottish heritage and was deeply impressed when I told him that Robbie Burns is an ancestor of mine. So let me end with a poem about the prospect of death, written by Burns.

O You unknown,

Almighty Cause Of all my hopes and fears!

In whose dreaded presence, within an hour,

Maybe I should show up!

If I’ve strayed down those paths

Of life I should shun,

Like something, loud, in my chest,

Remonstrations I have done;

You know that

You formed me

With passions wild and strong;

And listen to their witchy voice

Has often misled me.

Where human weakness fails,

Or weakness step aside, Do Thou, All Good -for such Thou art-

Hiding in shadows of darkness.

Where I made a mistake on purpose,

I have no other plea,

But You are good; and goodness still

Loves to forgive.

Our body politic will miss all that. Scotland will miss all that. For me it is very simple. I will miss my friend.

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