First Minister Alex Salmond sits down with Liz Rawlings in the midst of a crucial vote. On the agenda: local income tax, Independence, the Under 21 drinking ban and student activism.

Despite gracing the pages of the country’s newspapers on a daily basis, it is difficult to attain a comprehensive account of Alex Salmond’s character.  He combines left-wing politics with an authoritarian style of party management and in so doing, is a man who divides opinion like no other UK politician. He is described by his opponents as ‘ruthless’ and ‘vindictive’, while the London-based press have so- often sided with his former friend Jim Sillars’ account of the First Minister as ‘only a spin machine, spinning in a policy vacuum’. However, Salmond is also a figure lauded by his party and supporters alike as the saviour of Scottish political nationalism; the first SNP leader of Parliament in Scotland and above all, a master politician.

As leader of the SNP, Salmond is a figurehead for the fight for Scottish Independence. Contrary to the opinions of various political commentators, he confirms that there will be a referendum to decide the issue in 2010:

“We’ve always said 2010, we’ve never said anything else...That was in our manifesto, that’s the basis of which we won the election.  The reason for saying 2010 was because we wanted to fight the referendum after having demonstrated our competence in government.  We’ve never changed on this. The only people who have changed are the Labour party who were firstly against the referendum then wanted an instantaneous referendum in Scotland at least but not in London and now they don’t want a referendum at all as far as I can make out...but that’s a matter for them.”

This seems to be a theme throughout the interview – Salmond is keen to focus debate around his own party and their policies rather than worrying about political events outside of his control.  Indeed, when asked about the potential outcomes of a UK general election, Salmond is once again, diplomatic:

“I want a hung Parliament and I want a lot of SNP MPs to exert influence in that Parliament. I know some people argue that if a Tory government was elected at Westminster then the support for Independence would rise by fifteen per cent to a majority, but I think it’s much more important what’s happening in Scotland than what happens in Westminster.”

Salmond’s insistence that Scotland would be better-off without being tied to the Union has been questioned by economic analysts, particularly in light of the current financial crisis. However, the First Minister is adamant that now, more than ever, Independence would benefit the Scottish economy:

“Scotland’s single biggest economic difficulty over the last century has been the loss of its most educated, brightest, best people. That has [been] what has happened to Scotland. We’ve exported more talent to more places of a highly educated kind than just about any country on the planet. That’s what’s happened when Scotland has been governed by Westminster . If I was to put one single economic reason for Scottish Independence [it] is to reverse that flow of talent outwards...instead of being an exporter of human capital, to be an importer of human capital and take a very adventurous idea of what you should do in terms of your immigration policy in terms of offering an opportunity for lots and lots of intelligent people from around the world. We’ve exported lots of talent over the last 200 years or so maybe it’s time to import some back again.”

Despite the setback, Salmond is still adamant that local income tax will be successful in Scotland: “Why shouldn’t it work? At least a dozen other countries in Europe have it; it seems to work there so why wouldn’t it work here? At the end of the day people only pay taxation out of income...and the great virtue of paying tax out of income is the more income you’ve got the more taxation you pay. The problem with the council tax is its bourn a burden which it was never really designed to bear because it’s increased, it’s doubled since the Tories and Labour doubled it, and although we’ve frozen it which provides some relief to people, it’s still unfair. So yes, we’ll pursue local income tax, but the vote this afternoon indicates that the forces of the council tax cabal may have the votes on us on this - maybe it’ll be different when we introduce it next year. Who knows?”

The proposed tax changes have been of interest to students who feel they may be detrimentally affected if they undertake a part-time job to compliment their loan. Currently students do not have to pay council tax, yet the SNP has been unclear as to whether the same exemption would apply to local income tax. Considering that 73 per cent of students in Scotland are working during their studies – a figure significantly above the UK average, can Salmond guarantee that there will be an exemption for students if local income tax is adopted?

“The Labour and Conservative parties didn’t just vote down local income tax [today], they actually voted down an amendment proposing a student exemption” he explains: “Incidentally to be coverbilical by income tax as a student you’d have to earn 100 000 quid over your degree, in terms of what we’ve done as far as the graduate endowment is concerned.  To be worse off you’d have to earn that sort of sum. However, we’ve come to the conclusion and we’ve given an indication [through the amendment] that we think it would be better not to have students liable with local income tax”.

 “We’re not proposing to ban people drinking under 21, we’re proposing a ban on sales in off licenses and the difference is quite fundamental. I mean one of the obvious consequences of such a ban if it came in would be to revive the opportunity for University beer bars to exist because many University student unions and bars have gone out of existence because of cheap booze in supermarkets. It is very difficult for a University to compete with oodles of strong cheap cider stacked up in Tesco. Why are we not proposing a ban on alcohol sales to under 21s in terms of you know, drinking in a bar or club? Because it’s a controlled environment...that’s why it’s called a licensed premises. Binge drinking in terms of hyper sales targeted at young people is not a controlled environment; its exploitation and the people who suffer from it, by and large are the young people.”

‘As a student I did some pretty uh...nothing I want to report – usual student stuff’, Salmond says tentatively, before chuckling: “I launched a campaign once to occupy the Hall of Residence as a protest... but I did lots of stuff like that, lots of daft stuff and quite a bit of student activism which seemed important at the time, and some of it was actually.

“St Andrews is a very Anglicised University, a very socially select university and so I went as a kind of Scottish punter because I wanted to demonstrate something but I’m really glad I did because I met all sorts of different people...and certainly broadened my horizons considerably. I just absolutely loved it, and if it hadn’t been for the money and the lack of it, I’d still be there...but unfortunately, eventually I’d have to go and get a job”.

On the subject of his University days, Salmond’s mood abruptly alters and he adopts a serious tone of voice: “I had huge fights with the University when I was at St Andrews because they had lost track of their dimension with Scottish education. There was an instance of high failure rates of Scottish qualified students in the science faculty...and they weren’t failing because they weren’t clever. They were failing because the course structure in the 70s at St Andrews was oriented towards A Levels, despite the fact that it was a Scottish University... It was a huge scandal and then it was sorted because the University decided to reconnect itself with what it was meant to be doing in the first place. To actually get itself into that position just showed an attitude of the mind which was dreadful and I hope that no Scottish university would ever do that again.

“A University owes an obligation to the people, to the state, a community; let’s call it the community of the realm and therefore it should contribute to other goals in society like, for example, having proper social rights for the students who come into University – that’s a perfectly acceptable thing to ask for. I think for universities to pay attention to social factors and social mobility is very important indeed...as long as they take public cash then they’ve got obligations to people.”

2009 has been billed by the SNP as the year of ‘Homecoming’ – a phrase designed to attract visitors and ex-pats to the country to reconnect with their Scottish heritage – it’s a subject Salmond is clearly passionate about:

“Homecoming is often seen as a theme of getting a few tourists back for next year [but] it’s a lot more than that. It’s about a reconnection with a wider Scottish family...it’s to reemphasise and reconnect with that Scottish Diaspora” he explains.

The Homecoming 2009 campaign has attracted hoards of media attention. It was launched in November along with a television advert, appealing to Scottish tradition to stir up nostalgia among Scots abroad.  It featured stars such as Sean Connery, Lulu and Chris Hoy, and has become a cult hit among students and the Scottish population alike. Salmond himself seems genuinely surprised at its success:

“We actually designed it for showing in Scotland because it was designed to galvanise people in Scotland to invite their relatives back for Homecoming but its proving so popular that we’re now going to show it in England. I think, I’m right in saying in the cinemas in London and we’re showing it in America on PBS, they’re going to see it as well”.

The star of the advert is undoubtedly Connery, who refused to sing along like the other celebrities. Instead he whispers seductively ‘let me tell you that I love you, that I think about you all the time’ over the soaring pipe music:

“We went to the Homecoming premiere last week and Sean’s what? 78? And all the women were weak at the knees. It’s outrageous, I mean it’s unfair...I’ll just aspire to become sexy when I’m 78” he jokes.

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