Alex’s dark psyche
As the SNP leader bows out, his unofficial biographer examines the man behind the myths ahead of an exclusive serialisation of his updated book in next week’s Mail
AT the SNP conference in Perth yesterday, Alex Salmond said ‘so long, farewell’ to the party he has led, on and off, for nearly a quarter of a century – but it was not the speech he intended to make. Two months ago, he believed Scotland was on the cusp of achieving independence. But even a week, as his political hero Harold Wilson once remarked, is a long time in politics.
It is tempting to fall into the trap of assuming politicians don’t suffer from emotions like the mere mortals they represent. But, for someone who has spent two thirds of his life championing a specific cause, to fall at the final hurdle must have been a devastating blow.
Yet the point is that Mr Salmond came close, very close, and against considerable odds. When he became leader of the SNP back in 1990, securing a referendum, let alone nearly 45 per cent of the vote, would have seemed an impossible task.
Of course, that remarkable progress was not all down to just one man, but nevertheless it was Mr Salmond who had guided the SNP from the fringe to the mainstream, while shaping the best-known pro-independence arguments.
He wasn’t every voter’s cup of tea – hence the claims during the referendum that independence wasn’t about the First Minister. But as the veteran Nationalist Stephen Maxwell judged in his book Arguing for Independence: ‘Alex Salmond is certainly the central figure in the independence movement and crucial to its success.’
At the same time, there was no single ‘ Alex Salmond’. Even for a contemporary politician, he had many different guises: left-wing radical, centre- right economist, social democrat, monarchist – whatever front he judged a particular context required, he could generally contrive in his chameleon-like way.
But these were Mr Salmond’s public personas. Remarkably, even after more than a quarter of a century in frontline politics, few Scots knew anything of his private self.
The biographer Philip Short said a characteristic of ‘uncommon leaders everywhere’ was a natural authority rooted in an ‘inner solitude’ and, like François Mitterrand, there was a part of Mr Salmond’s being that was ‘locked, inaccessible to others’.
Scottish Daily Mail columnist Chris Deerin captured this aspect of his character well in writing that, despite being an ‘extraordinary, gifted and charismatic man’, he often gave the impression that an alien was ‘wearing his skin as a suit’.
Of course, most politicians present a carefully constructed image of themselves to their electorate but, in Mr Salmond’s case, it has always been difficult to separate public from private. Indeed, when I first started researching my (unauthorised) biography back in 2009, one had to reach all the way back to his undergraduate days to get any real handle on him as a human being.
WHEN he graduated f rom St Andrews in 1978, he was practically a fully-formed politician. And soon after that he married Moira, who presumably knows the private Salmond better than anyone else. Recently her husband has taken to referring to his wife as ‘ Mrs Salmond’, which hints at the playful nature of a relationship that has lasted more than 33 years.
The age difference of 17 years has been the source of much fascination but, beyond one joint interview 24 years ago, Moira has remained largely hidden from view. Naturally protective of her husband, she has given many a journalist a gentle caution against giving him a bad write-up. And Mr Salmond is protective of her, too. On the eve of the referendum, he admitted: ‘ It’s Moira I’ve been concerned for. She always said she married an economist, not a politician.’
That concern was real, for Mr Salmond often cancelled First Ministerial engagements if she fell ill, so he could be with her, usually in Aberdeenshire.
There were, of course, wild rumours – usually around election time – of a secret second family on the south coast of England, or affairs with colleagues past and present, yet there was never any solid evidence. In any case, it was difficult to comprehend where he’d have found the time.
For Mr Salmond was a poster boy for the ‘Presbyterian work ethic’, working himself and, importantly, others, incredibly hard. As First Minister, he expected his staff ’s hours and productivity to match his – so much so that ministers and aides were known to complain privately that, as he lacked other priorities such as children, his expectations often did not reflect the reality of modern life. Mr Salmond’s occasionally authoritarian, micro-managing leadership style also did not encourage autonomous think- ing. As one former adviser put i t: ‘ Having become such a totemic figure, he’d almost withdrawn other people’s ability to do things for themselves.’
This applied especially to the curious dynamic that existed between Mr Salmond and his closest aides. Some, such as Kevin Pringle and Geoff Aberdein, became almost like surrogate sons. And they remained loyal – in Pringle’s case, over the course of two decades – despite gruelling schedules and frequent, for lack of a better word, mon-sterings. The worst-kept secret at Holyrood was the First Minster’s volcanic temper. Former aides still flinch at the memory of particular dressings-down and, as a result, very few were brave enough to tell him things they knew he didn’t want to hear.
Claire Howell, the respected life coach, was an exception. She often found herself acting as a go-between, relaying aides’ concerns to ‘the Boss’ (as he came to be known, Mafia-like) because they knew he would take anything she said seriously.
Mr Salmond also got on particularly well with the former SNP MSPs Duncan Hamilton and Andrew Wilson, and other advisers came to appreciate having them around (during, for example, the referendum) – not least because their presence had a stabilising influence on the leader’s temperament.
His dieting did not improve his temper. As has been welldocumented, he shed several pounds on the so- called 5:2 diet, beloved of pop stars and George Osborne. There were rumours that medical advice had r ecommended urgent weight l oss due t o heart trouble.
But whatever his motivation, on the days that the leader of the nation had to sustain himself on boiled eggs and celery, aides learned to be on their guard.
THE dieting also betrayed Mr Salmond’s sensitivity, not j ust about his weight but in general terms. The longer he dealt with the media, for example, the more he seemed to obsess about it, rather like a beleaguered John Major. At the same time, he could be utterly charming, displaying random acts of generosity and great sensitivity to the personal difficulties of those who worked so hard for him – a sort of one-man good cop/ bad cop routine t hat induced extreme loyalty in his circle of advisers.
Privately, aides would admit to frustrations about the First Minster’s tardiness – some people would be kept waiting simply to
show who was boss. He would cancel appointments at the l ast minute, and had an often damaging habit of straying off the script.
Efforts to keep his worst traits in check – chuckling, for example, at his own jokes – sometimes worked, and sometimes didn’t.
An interview with GQ magazine, for example, was a typical example of Mr Salmond indulging himself, showing off to former spindoctor Alistair Campbell and saying unhelpful things such as praising Vladimir Putin.
There was a touch of the pub bore about him – he could be verbose and repetitive, and interviewers lived in fear of Salmondite tangents. And while the First Minister had spotted his share of talent over the years, some of his appointments baffled colleagues. The former journalist Joan McAlpine, for example, generated so much controversy (mainly through her newspaper column) that even the loyalist advisers feared she did more harm than good in terms of broadening support for independence.
But, no matter what happened, Mr Salmond remained fiercely loyal. Indeed, loyalty, often misplaced, was a hallmark of Salmond the man – yet one particularly close adviser suggested the First Minister was ‘an appalling judge of character’. Of course, political opponents said the same of his close relationships with the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, US businessman Donald Trump (although that quickly soured), Sir Brian Souter and other prominent figures who, like Mr Salmond himself, tended to divide opinion.
That said, he was usually quite certain who he didn’t like. Tony Blair (but not Gordon Brown) was a particular hate figure, as were any MPs or peers of a Tory hue.
He was never happier than when railing against Old Etonians, or ‘Lord Snooties’ as he once called them.
On occasion, this manifested itself as plain old-fashioned rudeness. One Westminster adviser was once astonished to hear Mr Salmond ask the Prime Minister, almost nonchalantly: ‘So what drove t he Camerons out of Scotland?’
HE tended to admire larger-than-life characters, dominant personalities who made the political weather – hence his qualified praise for President Putin and Ukip leader Nigel Farage.
Mr Salmond also loved depicting himself as somehow an anti-establishment politician – which of course, given that he’d spent seven years living in Bute House, was a bit of a stretch.
There were many paradoxes. He railed against ‘ Tories’ while appearing more than comfortable with small ‘c’ conservative economics, and revelled in being a man of the people while staying in the best possible hotels and travelling around the country in helicopters and private jets.
Little of this did Salmond any harm politically. Indeed, SNP activists and many voters appeared to like his bravado, his considerable conceit of himself. To watch hundreds of conference delegates hang on his every word was a remarkable experience.
Even when he did things they instinctively didn’t like – his zealous monarchism, for example, or his U-turn over Nato – loyalty usually trumped transitory feelings of unease. I remember one SNP member telling me that he hated the idea of an independent Scotland joining Nato but, if ‘Alex’ deemed it necessary, then that was ‘ good enough’ for him.
That was testament to Mr Salmond’s extraordinary authority over his party, an almost demagogic ability to convince them that he knew what was best. He achieved this partly with charisma, and partly by being a bully.
BUTE House and the Scottish Government became what Theodore Roosevelt termed a ‘bully pulpit’, an authoritative platform from which to energetically advocate the independence agenda. Thus Mr Salmond became the consummate political salesman, making the incredible seem credible and the undesirable desirable. As even Tony Blair’s former spindoctor Alastair Campbell conceded in late 2010, the SNP leader’s mood music had generated ‘a clever soundtrack to... an upbeat, devolved Scotland’.
Mr Salmond, in short, made Scots feel good about themselves. Without that ability, it is difficult to believe that almost 45 per cent of the electorate would have supported his independence vision. No matter how many intellectual contortions there were, something about Alex Salmond induced people to give him the benefit of the doubt.
While indulging in all the usual dark arts of politics, he managed to convince voters that somehow he was different, that he would deliver where lesser mortals had invariably failed.
In this era of anti-politics – and regardless of the referendum outcome – that was no mean feat.
David Torrance is author of Salmond: Against The Odds.