Attack on 'patriotic' Brown a gamble

ALEX Salmond has always been a gambler. The second-time-around leader of the Scottish National Party combines his passion for politics with a passion for horses, even finding time to be a tipster for this paper.

In attacking Gordon Brown, Mr Salmond has taken one of the biggest risks of his political career. Nationalists, like many on the left of the Labour party, have always had a certain admiration for Mr Brown.

They liked to contrast the solidly Scottish, supposedly socialist son of the manse who rose to become Chancellor with his Downing Street neighbour, presented - though they would not quite put it like this - as an effete high Anglican who was really a Tory.

Yesterday Mr Salmond signalled that, in the SNP at least, the days of differentiating Tony from Gordon are over. There are two apparent reasons for this. First, Mr Salmond was retaliating. At Labour’s Scottish conference last week Mr Brown was particularly savage about the SNP leader. The Chancellor referred to him by quoting (misquoted according to Mr Salmond) a line from the poet Shelley: "He has lost the power of communication but not, alas, the gift of speech".

As well as being a risk-taker, Mr Salmond has never been a politician to avoid a fight, so there was also an element of seeking to get his own back.

However, the SNP leader thinks strategically and he, like the rest of us, can see that there is a very high probability Mr Brown will be the next Prime Minister. And that means that the Nationalists have to take the fight to the man who is likely to be leading the UK after the next election, and will very likely be in charge at the time of the next Holyrood elections.

For the SNP and Salmond personally - he says his target is to become First Minister in 2007 - these elections are more important than the Westminster polls.

So it makes sense to establish your main target early. In politics, you have to kick your opponent and keep kicking him until it begins to hurt at the ballot box.

Tony Blair is not as unpopular north of the Border as many would have us believe. However, Mr Brown has an impeccable record on devolution, having campaigned for it way back in 1979, and is a ferocious opponent of independence, so is probably a more formidable opponent for the SNP.

But that is where the risk lies for Mr Salmond. With his conference speech that evoked the memory of Upper Clyde shipworkers, the miners, his demand for protesters to come to the G8 and his plea for a moral crusade against poverty at home and abroad, Mr Brown deliberately played to the Scottish audience.

Even if the reality is that the Chancellor’s policies - private finance, Bank of England independence and tax credits to name but three - are very new Labour, not to say new Democrat, Mr Brown can appeal to the Scottish collectivist psyche.

And therein lies the grave risk to Mr Salmond. The Chancellor is seen by the voters in Scotland - not to mention Newsnight presenters - as quintessentially Scottish. And he is. He even made sure that his son was born here.

In claiming that Mr Brown cares more about becoming Prime Minister than he cares about Scotland, the SNP leader is challenging the Chancellor’s credentials as a patriotic Scot. Questioning your opponent’s policies is one thing - questioning his patriotism is quite another.