Personal humiliation, Alex Salmond’s former university, St Andrews refuses to host his legacy stone, good judgement by the academics and huge slap in the face, Salmond aides have to go hawking round other uni campuses to find site for his wee ‘stone of destiny’, the myth of Alex Salmond as the “popular leader” goes up in smoke

Dear All

One of the modern myths that Scottish National Party like to use for the media and the public is that their leaders are popular and everyone loves them.

The current poll which has been published is that ‘everyone loves Nicola Sturgeon’, over some considerable time; Sturgeon has been pictured with kids in countless photo opportunisties. Alex Salmond used the same ‘gag’, if you notice pictures of him during the independence vote and before, standing in the background were young teenagers.

This type of ‘soft sell’ is done to pre-programme your subconscious that you are looking at someone the youth of today gravitate towards. Like he is some sort of guru, the all seeing, all wise man of legend. But what did Alex Salmond do that really changed Scotland for the better, not a lot beyond gimmicks.

Post Scottish independence defeat, Alex Salmond would think he is lucky to get a cocker spaniel to pee on his leg thus drawing some attention to him. Currently he is an embarrassment trying to re-invent himself as an elder statesman at Westminster commenting on foreign affairs.

So, where are the Salmond ‘admirers’?

They have all moved on to be Sturgeon followers, Salmond became yesterday’s man the minute he stepped down. Presently clinging onto power as an MP and MSP as he is being frozen out of the spotlight as the SNP embed the cult of personality with Nicola Sturgeon! When you generally hear him, he is trotting out either some bizarre nonsense or giving out some less than sage advice which everyone already knows, and it doesn’t add value coming out of his mouth.

Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon destroyed higher and further education for the working class people of Scotland as a route out of poverty, 144,000 colleges places lost, the gap between rich and poor going to university widening, bursaries cut, all in the name of middle class welfare-ism.

Far from helping the poor, Salmond and Sturgeon built bridges to ensure that once the poor were in the ghetto or sink estate; that is where they would remain, in poor housing, no prospects and no future.

And the SNP reminding the working class that it is all the fault of ‘the English’ despite them being in control of Scottish education for 8 years, nothing good is getting done, and never will unless there is a culture change.

Quick question, the SNP wants to welcome refugees into Scotland, whose housing and jobs will they be targeting?

The poor is the answer, just in case you get confused trying to work that out, you see not every economic migrant is a scientist, doctor or dentist.
 
Next, what do you know about ‘Free tuition’?

Firstly, it isn’t free; the taxpayer is forking out the cash as this is a political choice how Scotland’s money is spent by who controls the government, in this case the SNP. Secondly, although education is seen as a route out of poverty, the poor aren’t getting the same life chances as the rich.

Alex Salmond used ‘free tuition’ to con the working class, they signed up to as I said middle class welfare-ism where money that should have been spent on them and their children was siphoned off.

Conned!

And it isn’t just the money for education, a billion pounds by the Conservatives to help lift Scottish children out of poverty wasn’t passed on by the SNP. Remember the new Forth road bridge, the SNP instead of protecting Scottish jobs allowed the steel to be bought outside Scotland, so much for ‘stronger for Scotland’. At every level, the poor are being treated with utter contempt and given meaningless rhetoric to take the blame away from where it really belongs.  

We all know Alex Salmond’s famous phrase in education:

“the rocks will melt with the sun before I allow tuition fees to be imposed on Scottish students”.

Now, an ex First Minister, he doesn’t have the authority to stop anything, to do that you need the reins of power which he gave up rather quickly.

He also forgot to include in his mini speech he would also load the students up with debt which will take some people, a rather long time to pay off.

Alex Salmond went to St Andrews University, to give himself some sort of legacy; he had a large commemorative stone made with the quote. However, St Andrews didn’t want anything to do with Salmond.

What price popular now eh?

So, the Uni decided quite rightly to end him packing, the next university which the SNP mob approached similarly weren’t interested in a lump of rock cluttering the place up, so they decided to send him packing as well.

It took the ‘popular’ Alex Salmond three goes before Heriot-Watt became the third time unlucky and hosted the stone.

Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader said:

“Alex Salmond put a monument to himself in one of our universities, with his tuition fee pledge on it. Let me tell you what I’ll put in our universities. Every youngster from our poorest families who has the potential to get there... the rocks will melt with the sun before I accept even one working class boy or girl who can’t get to university just because their family wasn’t rich enough or their school wasn’t posh enough or the system just did not believe in them enough.”

Scottish Conservative young people spokeswoman Liz Smith said:

“It's no surprise that some universities turned down Alex Salmond. It was a hostage to fortune then and remains so now, particularly given the anger that these institutions feel to towards the SNP's higher education bill which threatens to rip out the heart of the sector.”

Three attempts to find a place to have a legacy, Salmond’s ‘popularity’ died a rather quick death once he stepped down. When the people of Scotland wise up to Nicola Sturgeon, she will see how quickly people distance themselves from her at a rate of knots. Of course this will create a problem for her nasty vile clique in Glasgow whose IQs rival that of a handball, they will have to fill out KFC forms and learn this quote:

“Do you want fries with that”?

Middle class welfare-ism has to go as a priority for the benefit of Scotland, and a new education model installed offering more opportunities for working class people, and a change of government, before that happens, some people will have to be removed by the public at the ballot box.

Scotland needs a new type of leadership beyond the tokenism of Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond; it needs a vision, not just of hope but more importantly of delivery.

Alex Salmond's university refusing to host a monument to him is highly amusing, although people are frightened to speak out because of Nationalist intimidation; a quiet No pricks the ego, does it not?

Big ego means a big humiliation, isn’t it seeming like more like Xmas every day at present?

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University