The latest episode in Scotland’s longest-running soap opera was broadcast today as former first minister Alex Salmond took to YouTube to announce the launch of his new pro-independence party Alba. The new party, Salmond announced, would only contest list seats under Scotland’s additional member system, because, as he argued, the SNP is set to win the most constituencies and the more constituency seats you win, the harder it is to win them on the list. This, Salmond claimed, would help create a ‘supermajority’ for independence.
Unfortunately that was the only thing that could be said to be ‘super’ about the launch. Connectivity problems plagued the livestream from the start meaning Salmond was intermittently forced to gaze blankly into the camera, licking his lips with a thousand-yard stare plastered on his face. Questions from journalists were said in an eerie silence as the link was muted for 38 minutes, including one occasion when all that could be heard was the sound of a creaking door. Truly speaking to the silent majority there…
Highlights included Salmond swigging what looked suspiciously like Irn Bru, journalists having their Zoom questions muted by the host and Wings over Scotland blogger Stuart Campbell popping up with the words ‘Your internet connection is unstable’ appearing over him. Browsing online, Mr S found an internet archive shows that the domain name for Alba party used to be an Albanian chat room that welcomes you ‘to the virtual world of Dardania’ replete with lurid mid-noughties internet graphics. Embarrassingly the word ‘independence’ is also misspelt on Alba’s own website on a section plugging an event to mark the 701st anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath next month.
Well, it’s not the first time Salmond has had his problems with the English.
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