Alex Salmond’s brand of populist nationalism involves portraying the Tories as the party of the class enemy. But his latest attack on David Cameron and the TV debates has crossed the line of decency. ‘Like most posh boys, given half a chance, he’ll run away from a fight,’ he said yesterday.
This is bigotry, pure and simple, and Salmond disgraces Scotland with such inverted snobbery. Would he (or anyone else) talk about ‘poor boys’ in such a way? If Salmond intends to use this line in the general election campaign he will find, as Labour found, that Britain does not share the prejudice which animates some of its politicians. Voters don’t really mind if a politician is poor or posh: it’s what they say that counts. That’s why Boris, an alumnus of Bullingdon and Eton, was twice elected mayor of a Labour city.
Most Scots will have no truck with Salmond’s sentiment.
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