Leader: Not only foes are concerned at Salmond's arrogance

ON SIX occasions in the Holyrood chamber yesterday Alex Salmond was given the opportunity to apologise, retract or withdraw his intemperate attacks on Scotland's most senior judge, Lord Hope, and other legal figures. Six times he refused to do so.

Now, political observers would suggest it is more likely the rocks melt with the sun than we get an apology from this First Minister, emboldened as he has become by his party's outright majority in the Scottish Parliament, but he would have been wise to sound a note of contrition.

For as the Scotland Office pointed out yesterday (with a certain partisan relish, it must be said), Mr Salmond has come perilously close to contravening the 2008 Judiciary and Courts (Scotland) Act of the Scottish Parliament, which makes it clear Scottish ministers have an explicit duty to protect the independence of the judiciary. In so doing Mr Salmond is wading into deeply controversial and dangerous constitutional waters, as the separation between those who make the laws, in the case of Scotland's criminal law this means the Holyrood parliament, and those who administer and interpret them, including the judiciary, is central to a democratic society.

Beyond this there is a further concern which goes to the heart of Mr Salmond's new-found style of wielding unfettered power by berating those, even the judiciary, who happen to disagree with him. Even those who believe the judicial system is far from perfect, and that includes this newspaper, believe he has over-stepped the mark. Critics of Mr Salmond include the Faculty of Advocates, the Law Society of Scotland, Lord Hope himself, individual advocates, human rights lawyers, senior SNP figure the former MP Jim Sillars, three opposition parties at Holyrood, the Scotland Office, and many newspapers as well as this one. In Mr Salmond's world view, however, they are obviously all wrong and he alone is right.

As we are only at the early stages of a five-year term of office for a government which derives its power from the unprecedented and unexpected majority the Nationalists won in the May election, such a high-handed, arrogant attitude to high office is of profound concern to all those who value Scottish democracy - and that must surely include many in the SNP. Can Mr Salmond be certain that even some of his senior colleagues don't doubt his judgement on this occasion?

The SNP's political opponents will claim this row exposes the real Alex Salmond behind the carefully crafted softer image he was warned by advisers to adopt as he led the last minority administration and in debates during the election. In reality, his critics say, he is a tyrannical and belligerent bully who will seek to coerce everyone - from civil servants, to party staff, council leaders, even judges - to bend to his will, whether he is right or wrong. Mr Salmond's recent actions have done little to convince us this characterisation of him is ill-founded.