Alex Salmond ‘astonished’ by Brown’s petition call

FIRST MINISTER Alex Salmond says he is astonished by Gordon Brown’s call for Scottish people to sign a petition urging Westminster to keep it’s promises on powers for Scotland

First Minister Alex Salmond made the comments in reaction to Gordon Brown's call for signatures from the people of Scotland. Picture: Ian Rutherford

Mr Salmond said: “This is an astonishing development. How can Gordon Brown call for people to sign a petition urging Westminsterto keep its promises on more powers for Scotland when he himself has already said that is a vow which will be honoured?

“He is now calling for guarantees on the delivery of something which he himself said during the referendum campaign was already a done deal.

“The ‘Tory trap’ is not the proposals on income tax which Gordon Brown talks about - it is the Tory trap which he and his colleagues are leading people into, in which the issue of more powers for Scotland becomes entangled in a row between factions of the Westminster establishment.

“Scotland has been promised very substantial new powers, regardless of Tory attempts to link the issue to that of English votes for English laws.

“Many of the people who voted No in the referendum did so in the belief that those new powers would be delivered, and that is what now must happen.”

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