Alex Salmond has admitted that sex assault claims against him have dented his reputation with Scottish voters.
The former First Minister has also rejected as “total rubbish” claims that staff were expected to tie his shoelaces and remove dandruff.
Salmond spoke exclusively to the Record for the first time since we revealed claims of sexual harassment against him in 2018.
Although Salmond was later cleared in a sensational High Court trial of all charges, a recent poll found that he had a net favourability rating of -51 per cent – worse than Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Salmond said: “I’ll tell you exactly what explains the poll ratings that you quote. And that is that people have heard nothing about me for the last two-and-a-half years beyond court cases and investigations and inquiries and this, that and the next thing.
“It’s just impossible to emerge from that sort of publicity without getting people thinking badly of you.”
Responding to the shoelace and dandruff claims, he said: “The suggestion was total rubbish. For a start, I don’t have dandruff.”
Salmond is back in the political spotlight with his new Alba party and hopes to return enough MSPs to create a “supermajority” for independence at the May 6 Holyrood election.
He was cleared of criminal charges at his trial but he admitted a “sleepy cuddle” with a civil servant when in Government. The First Minister has said she will refuse to work with him until he apologises to the women involved in the legal action he faced last year.
When asked this week about the lack of an apology, Salmond said: “Matters were apologised for in 2013, and that apology was accepted, an apology was repeated during the criminal case.”
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s Government investigated him after two women accused him of sexual misconduct but the probe was unlawful.
A Holyrood Committee examined the fiasco and he was separately acquitted of sexual offences charges after a trial last year.
Tensions boiled over again yesterday when Sturgeon signalled that the SNP would not back Alba’s call for immediate post-election talks with the UK Government on independence.
Speaking about his former party, Salmond told the Record: “It illustrates a difference of opinion in this election campaign, a difference that will be settled by the people.”
Salmond said of the SNP Government’s approach to independence: “Any reasonable observer would say that the preparations for independence have not been advanced as they should have been, and as they should be now incidentally... I haven’t seen much in the way of a construction of the independence argument, to take account of the fact that in 2021 many of the assumptions that were reasonably made in 2014 no longer apply.
"The world has changed.”
Salmond also criticised Sturgeon over the council of economic advisers, which he set up when he was FM.
He said: “The council of economic advisers doesn’t seem to have been accorded the same importance that it had in its initial years, and I think that’s a great difficulty.”
Salmond has said he is willing to put aside his personal differences with Sturgeon but he is still intending to sue the Government over failings in its own probe into him.
He said: “Suing the Scottish Government is not suing Nicola Sturgeon.”
He added: “I think is an entirely reasonable action. People are entitled to pursue their legal rights and entitled to stand for Parliament.”
On whether he has empathy for the two women who complained to the Government, he said: “I have empathy for everyone who has been caught up in this whole business over the last two years.”
He also said: “I actually said elsewhere in the Inquiry that it was a nightmare for all involved, and I was talking in particular if you remember about the leak to the Daily Record, and how that had brought everyone involved into the most dreadful position.”
He denied a reported claim that former staff felt shamed because they were expected to tie his shoelaces and remove dandruff.
He said: “These suggestions were so much rubbish that even [Permanent Secretary] Leslie Evans found against them, and that is saying something.”
Asked whether the “sleepy cuddle” with a woman he admitted happened in his official Bute House residence was an abuse of power, he said: “The answer to your question is as follows – that I believe these matters were answered in court.”
Salmond also addressed criticisms of him fronting a show broadcast on Kremlin-backed RT, a decision that has led to scrutiny of his views on Putin’s Russia.
Does he agree Putin is a tyrant? “I’m not going to start criticising international leaders. I have great disagreements with the way the Russian state pursues its domestic policy, and I’ve made that clear.”
He added: “I don’t think it is helpful to personalise the criticisms.”
His broken relationship with Sturgeon will come under sustained scrutiny if he is elected, but he insists they can work together, saying: “I know that sensible politicians, and I count Nicola among that, accept the verdict of the people and do what they can for the country.”
Responding to Salmond’s claims an SNP spokeswoman said: “The only safe way to ensure Nicola Sturgeon is re-elected as First Minister and that Scotland’s future lies in Scotland’s hands – not Boris Johnson’s – is to give both votes to the SNP on May 6th.”
