Swaggering Salmond boasts: I’ll be writing Labour’s budget
Secret footage reveals SNP bigwig boasting he will have Miliband in his pocket after election
ALEX Salmond has provoked outrage after he was caught boasting: ‘I’m writing Labour’s budget.’
Secret footage showed the former first minister, who is bidding to become an MP, mocking Labour after it slapped down its Scottish leader Jim Murphy, who claimed he would write the party’s budget north of the border.
‘I knew that [he wouldn’t be writing it] already – because I’m writing the Labour Party budget,’ Mr Salmond declared to cheers at a fundraising event.
He also joked that he would ‘check his top pocket’ – a reference to a Conservative election poster showing a miniature Mr Miliband in his breast pocket.
It prompted David Cameron and Boris Johnson to join forces to warn of a looming ‘constitutional crisis’.
They questioned the legitimacy of the SNP’s plan to try to put Ed Miliband in Downing Street, even if Labour wins fewer seats at the Election.
Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister had tweeted the footage of Mr Salmond with the message: ‘This footage will shock you: Alex Salmond laughs & boasts he’ll write Labour’s budget. Vote Conservative to stop it.’
Mr Cameron, in his first joint interview with the London Mayor, his chief rival to the Tory leadership, said: ‘In the last 48 hours the SNP have said “no money spent on
‘Stakes are high’
defence projects unless you get rid of Trident”. “No HS2 unless it starts in Scotland”.
‘You have now got Salmond saying he wants to write Ed Miliband’s budget. That’s before this has even happened. Imagine how much worse it would be, imagine how many pockets would be picked if this were to happen.
‘The stakes at this election have always been high. It’s about sticking with a plan that’s working or risking it with Ed Miliband. But frankly the stakes have got much higher because of what’s happening in Scotland with the SNP potentially wiping out Labour.
‘The way to avoid that outcome which would be unstable, bad for the economy, bad for jobs, bad for living standards, bad for this country’s prospects, the way to avoid it is to vote Conservative.’
The London Mayor, deployed to inject more passion into the Tory campaign, claimed it would mean ‘truckfuls of taxpayers’ dosh growling up the M1 to Scotland’.
‘Lots of people ... people who might even have voted Labour ... will think that this is a constitutional crisis,’ he added. Mr Johnson, who is seeking to return to the Commons in the west London seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, also said a Labour government dependent on the SNP’s support would be ‘totally shambolic’.
The SNP has declared it will never support the Conservatives in a hung Parliament. But it is ready to do a deal with Labour, even if it finishes in second place. It would be the first time since 1924 that a second-placed party had formed a government.
Mr Miliband dismissed Mr Salmond’s claim in the footage as ‘fantasy and nonsense’.
But he again refused to rule out relying on SNP votes in a hung parliament. ‘We are going to be writing the first Labour budget,’ he told BBC Radio Five Live. The Labour leader insisted he had no plans to negotiate, adding: ‘I am going to put a Labour Queen’s Speech before the Commons and people will have to decide how they vote.’
Mr Miliband also accused Mr Cameron of ‘trying to stir up English hatred against the Scots’ by highlighting the threat posed by the SNP’s Leftwing agenda.
Responding to the leaked footage, Mr Salmond said Mr Cameron should ‘try holding a few public meetings and meeting real people – and develop a sense of humour’.
‘The point made in a lighthearted way was that Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy had been slapped down by his party bosses at Westminster and told that he would have no role in a Labour budget,’ Mr Salmond said. ‘David Cameron is clearly a prime minister with both a people bypass and a sense of humour bypass.’
It came as Nicola Sturgeon, Mr Salmond’s successor, set out another policy demand for the entire of the UK, saying SNP MPs would vote for a £ 24billion increase in NHS spending.
Last night, Labour deployed former prime minister Gordon Brown, who claimed the only way Mr Cameron can win the election ‘ is to build resentment in Scotland of the English and resentment in England of the Scots’.
However, he also warned that an SNP surge could lead to ‘months of constitutional chaos’.
On The Road with Boris, Jane Fryer – Pages 28 & 29