Scotland’s ‘jolly fat man’ Alex Salmond says he could have saved Royal Bank of Scotland from the financial crash, Scottish people and politicians take to Twitter to mock his risible claim, he has been a political failure, now he is a hasbeen

Dear All

It appears that there is something possibly wrong with the tap water in the residence of Scotland’s ‘jolly fat man’ Alex Salmond.

Although the Scottish National Party is adapt at trying to re-write history to make them look good; sometimes people take the joke too far.

Alex Salmond leaves the office of First Minister as a political failure.

He lost the Scottish independence referendum because he was stupid, ignorant and small minded. Although he and others managed to cover up for several years their failures as Ministers of the Crown, Scotland isn’t a better country for it.

Law and Order, Health and Education, the big three are all a shambles. During Salmond’s time as First Minister, he was shown to be less than capable of delivering on fairness, equality and social justice for all.

He could argue however, he did deliver that to his clique.

Salmond has become more and more deluded; he claims he could have prevented the Royal Bank of Scotland from collapsing prior to the economic crash. This does beg the question, given his position in politics, the head of a political party which does continual research on economic, how did they all miss it?

Could Salmond have prevented the economic crash?

Hardly, he was writing to Fred Goodwin urging him to press ahead with the disastrous ABN Amro takeover.

It is a bit like urging someone to pour more petrol on the fire which is out of control; RBS dug themselves a hole, and thought they could keep digging to get them out the other side.

For Alex Salmond to claim he could have saved the Royal Bank of Scotland if he had remained working there is utter nonsense, he had a job for a while as one of the bank’s oil economists. He has suggested he could have stopped RBS pursuing the high-risk expansionist business model, and we are to believe the executives would have bought into this and thereby stopped themselves pocketing massive bonuses as they played out their paper game.

When things finally went tits up, the bank had to have a £46 billion bail-out by the UK taxpayer, if Scotland had been independent, the bank couldn’t have been saved. This idea that Salmond has that he is a mastermind is pathetic, he is opportunist, his track record of political failure is by his own hand, he also benefited by the stupidity of others in this case the Labour Party who failed to deliver for the people of Scotland coupled with the Westminster expenses scandal, this effectively done them in.

As he leaves office on Wednesday, Salmond wants to paint himself as new broom for his possible future Westminster return; to that end he is giving a series of tabloid interviews.

In true small man fashion, he accused the BBC of helping the Unionists win the independence referendum. Grudge, grievance and malcontent pours out of him like an open sewer, the people of Scotland killed off Salmond’s referendum idea, his and the SNP’s vision was rejected.

The BBC gave the SNP an easy ride in interview after interview.

His delusion on refusing to accept that the risks to the economy and the pound shows he was never in a position to deliver independence, he dug his political grave by lying and deception.

Opposition parties have since accused him of a “ludicrous attempt to rewrite history”, especially homing in on the RBS bid and the letter Salmond wrote to Fred Goodwin in 2007.

At the time, he said:

“It is in Scottish interests for RBS to be successful and I would like to offer any assistance my office can provide. Good luck with the bid.”

While people were sensing something was going wrong economically and calling for tougher regulations, it was the same year Salmond took the opposite view and called for lighter regulation of the banking and financial services sectors.

The UK has been said by people such as Max Keiser of the Keiser Report to be the centre for fraud in the Western world.

And I doubt many could agree with that sentiment.

Jackson Carlaw, the Scottish Conservative deputy leader, said:

“It is to the world's regret that this view he could have been the saviour of RBS didn’t come to mind when he wrote the infamous ‘gain yersel’ letter to Fred Goodwin. It goes without saying that the First Minister has an ego, but this latest claim is absolutely staggering and utterly risible.”

Willie Rennie, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, added:

“Alex Salmond’s ludicrous attempt to rewrite history over his support of RBS’ exploits is dealt a fatal blow by his own pen.”

As news of Salmond’s attempt to re-write history unfolded, people took to twitter to rip the utter pish out of him, mockery and derision pour out on Twitter, with Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, saying:

“If he was on Apollo 13 they’d have landed on the moon.”

Since he didn’t land on the moon, it now appears he is howling at the moon, what a piece of luck for unpopular Nicola Sturgeon having such a loose cannon making rather stupid statements.

On twitter, I noted he couldn’t save the right to a fair trial in a government that he personally controlled, so the idea he could save a bank from collapse is risible.

I think the expression…. ‘Bam’ has real currency here.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University