Cameron’s campaign ‘plain bonkers’, claims Lord Steel

FORMER Presiding Officer Lord Steel has accused David Cameron of playing into Alex Salmond’s hands over the referendum.

The former Liberal leader, pictured below, has hit out at the coalition’s decision to put George Osborne in charge of co-ordinating the pro-UK campaign, describing it as “plain bonkers”.

In an interview with House magazine, Lord Steel, who was Holyrood’s first Presiding Officer in 1999, warned that Westminster politicians do not understand the First Minister. He made it clear that he was unhappy with the way the Prime Minister forced the issue earlier this month and suggested it was damaging the pro-UK campaign.

He said: “I think they have handled it very badly – David Cameron has played into Alex Salmond’s hands. The problem with the Scottish issue is that most of the politicians here don’t understand Alex Salmond.”

But he also appeared to put himself forward as a leading figure in the pro-UK campaign as somebody who understood who he would be fighting. He said: “I think I have the measure of him [Salmond] and know him only too well. He is extremely sharp, witty, and clever.”

But he dismissed the Tory plan to have the Chancellor playing the co-ordinating role in the campaign.

He said: “The idea that George Osborne should take on a ‘no’ referendum campaign is just plain bonkers – if I were Alex Salmond I would be rubbing my hands in glee at the thought.”