Scottish Election 2021: Why Nicola Sturgeon must rule out a coalition government with Alex Salmond – Scotsman comment

Alex Salmond should have no place in Scottish politics.

Alex Salmond's association with Russia Today, his refusal to say Russia was responsible for the Salisbury poisonings, and his failure to apologise to women who complained about his behaviour make him unfit for elected office (Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

To make such a statement about a politician who has been a giant figure in public life for decades requires considerable justification.

But the reasons are clear.

The former First Minister has made much of the fact that he was cleared of charges of sexually assaulting nine women. Indeed, when asked to apologise to those women – at the Scottish Parliament’s inquiry into the Scottish government’s handling of the complaints made against him – he declined to do so and instead referred to the not guilty verdicts.

However elected representatives are held to a higher standard than simply being “not a criminal”. It is obvious that Salmond at the very least offended the women in question and anyone with a sense of decency would realise the need for some kind of apology, even if it came with caveats about being cleared of criminality. After all, when the allegations became public, he rather vaguely admitted he was “no saint” and had “got flaws” as he denied criminal behaviour.

But the offence he caused to an alarming number of women during his time as First Minister is not the only reason why Salmond is no longer fit for public office.

In a new interview, he dismissed evidence that Russia interfered in the 2014 independence referendum as “laughable” saying this “certainly” did not happen, despite a UK intelligence report which concluded that it had.

He also refused to say if he believed Russia was responsible for the 2018 poisoning of former Russian agent Sergei Skripal, his daughter Yulia Skripal, and several other people in Salisbury and Dawn Sturgess, who died as a result, and Charlie Rowley in nearby Amesbury.

Only a fool doubts that Russia was responsible and few would regard Salmond as unintelligent. The use of the Novichok nerve agent – the same poison used on Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny – was a deliberate way to send a message that Vladimir Putin's regime was responsible without actually saying so directly, thereby providing the Kremlin with what has been described as “implausible deniability”.

A similar tactic was used when Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014. The world was asked to believe that the “green men” who appeared in Crimea were not Russian soldiers and that the subsequent referendum to join Russia was a free and fair vote.

But, given Salmond decided to have his own political talk show on Russia Today, the state-owned Putin propaganda outlet, three years later, perhaps he buys these utterly ridiculous accounts too.

Putin has destroyed democracy in Russia and demonstrated he is prepared to kill people he does not like. Any reasonable democratic politician would run a mile from any kind of association with the Russian president.

So Ed Davey, leader of the UK Liberal Democrats, was quite right to say that "the idea that you have Mr Putin's spokesperson in Holyrood [his description of Salmond] should send shivers down the spines of people, it is quite shocking”.

However, it remains possible that Salmond will win a seat at Holyrood and so today The Scotsman calls on Nicola Sturgeon to make clear that she will not form a coalition that includes Salmond as a member of the government.

She would surely be loath to enter into any political alliance with Salmond, but it is extremely important to make this clear before the election on May 6.

Standards in public life really do matter to the health of a democracy. With his attacks on the press and the democratic process in the US, Donald Trump showed there are those who regard Putin as a role model.

So Scotland must be on its guard against apologists for such a brutal and warmongering dictator.

But even if Salmond was not tainted by association through his RT show, men who refuse to apologise for causing gross offence to women should forevermore be yesterday’s men.

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