General Election 2010: Alex Salmond rages against the BBC machine

Published on Sunday 2 May 2010 22:49

ALEX Salmond yesterday blamed the SNP's exclusion from the live leaders debates for his party's anonymous election campaign.

When asked about his party's collapse in the Scottish polls, which predicts the SNP will fall well short of its 20-seat target, he turned his anger on the "BBC machine".

Mr Salmond said: "That's our target – it's an ambitious target, I accept that.

"I reckon we went into this election with 30 per cent of the vote.

"The day before the first TV debate we were sitting on 28 per cent and looking at our greatest ever showing in a Westminster election.

"The debates have set us back, but we've now got a ground campaign going, because there's a groundswell of feeling in Scotland that the SNP and Scotland have been done down by being excluded from the broadcasts.

"We feel if we can ride that wave of rage against the machine, rage against the BBC machine and the Westminster machine, then I think it might carry us a very, very long way in this election campaign."

Mr Salmond has spent much of the campaign demanding a place in the national televised debates that have dominated the election.

Last week, the SNP failed in its attempt in the courts to prevent the screening of the final debate in Scotland if Mr Salmond was excluded.