Annabel Goldie: Put up or Shut Up Mr Salmond
Annabel Goldie calls on Alex Salmond not to be so hypocritical and put up or shut up at the Conservative Conference in Manchester. All delivered in that wonderful Auntie knows best tones
I do not like, nor want, the inward looking, insular Scotland that Alex Salmond is hell bent on creating. As a nation we used to be outward looking and welcoming, now Mr Salmond is changing that. I shall fight tooth and nail against that creeping Nationalism and I shall do all I can to persuade people in Scotland that at this British General Election they should be voting for a British Prime Minister.
“And on the point of a British Prime Minister – Alex Salmond I know you are threatening to ban the people of Scotland from watching a TV debate between David Cameron and Gordon Brown. Well I say this to you – you are not standing in this election to become the British Prime Minister, you are not even standing to be an MP. The SNP is irrelevant at a British General Election. However I will debate with you anytime you want. You’ve chickened out of that challenge in the past – the last two leader’s debates in Scotland you didn’t turn up – well it’s time to put up or shut up.
Annabel Goldie’s Speech to Conservative Conference 2009 – Scottish Conservative Party.
The problem for Ms Goldie and her party is that she clearly only represents a small fraction of Scotland’s population. She is as irrelevant to Scottish politics as Salmond is to ‘British’, but at least in his case it is purely through demographic limitations, not appeal.
Whilst I’m no fan of the current ‘British’ governance, I shudder to think what the Union will be like if, and it is still a big if, the blue rinses and Timmy boys get into power through votes down south. I hazard to suggest the break up of the Union will be swifter as London and Edinburgh come to frequent loggerheads.