Alex Salmond has trashed the quality of MSPs at Holyrood by saying Scotland has a Parliament of “numpties”.
In a clear dig at the SNP, which he used to lead, he quoted late poet Edwin Morgan who said the parliament should not be a place for “fearties”.
He also backed the creation of a second chamber at Holyrood and spoke in favour of compulsory voting.
The former SNP First Minister is contesting the election for his new pro-independence party Alba after a bitter fallout with his successor Nicola Sturgeon.
The campaign has been dominated by sniping between the pair, with Sturgeon saying she will not work with her former mentor if he is elected.
Salmond started his campaign by promising to be positive, claiming: “You won’t find a word of negativity coming off the lips of any Alba candidate as we progress that case for independence.”
However, he appears to have ditched this approach after making a scathing attack on MSPs.
In an interview with independence supporters, Salmond said he is “sympathetic” to a Scottish Senate as a way of bringing in “expertise and ability” on a less party political basis.
He then insulted people who had become MSPs after working as researchers for politicians:
“The real case for a second chamber is to draw into politics and to legislation people with real expertise, people who’ve got real life expertise beyond being a researcher for somebody or other for a few years and then think they’ve got an entitlement to stand for Parliament.”
He said Holyrood had some “great” parliamentarians, such as the SNP’s Alex Neil, who he said can tell the whips to to take a “running jump”.
But he blasted: “Unfortunately, with one or two honourable exceptions, and some good gifted parliamentarians who are in the Scots parliament, we’ve ended up in many cases with a parliament of numpties. And we don’t want a parliament of numpties. A parliament of numpties we do not want.”
“We want people, whatever their political persuasion is, who are prepared to stand up as parliamentarians.”
He also said he is “sympathetic” to compulsory voting, but added that he does not believe this is the most important issue.
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