How Salmond handed FM a ticking time bomb
WHEN Alex Salmond returned to the SNP helm in 2004, he made rebuilding the party’s relationship with business front and centre of his second spell in charge.
On the road to 2014’s referendum, he was keenly aware that the case for independence would only be credible with the support of Scottish firms.
A veteran of knife-edge election battles, the MP for Gordon learned from bitter experience when to fold and when to hedge his bets.
Now sandwiched between Brexit and a push for a second independence referendum, the furore over the Scottish Government’s hike in business rates threatens to engulf the current SNP administration. And Salmond knows it.
Openly rebuking Finance Secretary Derek Mackay, Salmond declared some firms had a “very legitimate case” for opposing the huge rates rise.
Nicola Sturgeon has a lot to weigh up as she considers how to respond to this potential tinderbox of a crisis.
She is courting the support of the Greens while negotiating shrinking public finances. She also needs just about every friend she can get to stand a fighting chance of victory in another run at independence in 2018.
The FM is entitled to feel a pinch of frustration with her predecessor. Salmond’s administration decided in 2012 to put back the revaluation from 2015, when it was supposed to have taken place.
Now that delay is exploding on Sturgeon’s watch – leaving her with a humdinger of a headache.