Alex Salmond: The Ego That Sank Scotland’s Independence Dream

It was day two of the bizarre public mourning for Alex Salmond, and the spectacle had already spiralled into the absurd. Salmond diehards were eulogising him as if he were William Wallace reincarnated, some even floating the idea of a state funeral. Yes, the same Alex Salmond who, rather than leading Scotland to freedom, left the country on its knees with his failed attempt at independence, a string of personal vices, and an ego the size of Ben Nevis.

Let’s be clear: the myth-making surrounding Salmond has started to drift into dangerous territory. His supporters are inflating his legacy into something heroic, when in reality, this was a man who couldn’t even make a credible financial case for Scotland’s independence. Behind the charm, the long lunches, and the racing tickets was a politician who spent his career surrounded by economic illiterates—cheerleaders in tartan ties who couldn’t tell you the difference between a balance sheet and a bank statement. It’s no wonder the Yes campaign collapsed under the weight of its own shoddy arithmetic.

The Grand Vision—Built on Hot Air and Ego

At the height of his powers, Salmond loved to project an image of statesmanlike grandeur, treating the idea of Scottish independence like a historic inevitability. And yet, when it came down to making the numbers add up, his vision of a thriving independent Scotland began to unravel.

The 2014 independence referendum could have been his crowning achievement, but instead, it revealed Salmond’s biggest weakness: he didn’t know how to run the numbers. Rather than constructing a robust economic plan for Scotland, Salmond relied on rhetoric and bluster, hoping that sheer charisma could fill the gaping holes in his arguments.

Take his insistence that an independent Scotland would retain the British pound—a claim so laughable it had even the most moderate economists shaking their heads. When challenged on how this would work without fiscal control, Salmond waved it away with the breezy confidence of a man who believed bravado could substitute for basic financial literacy.

And let’s not forget the oil debacle. Salmond built much of his independence fantasy on the idea of North Sea oil revenues, painting a picture of Scotland awash in petrodollars. It was a dream so delusional it could’ve come straight out of Trainspotting. Oil prices plummeted soon after the referendum—an economic reality Salmond and his merry band of economic lightweights apparently hadn’t considered. But when you're surrounded by people who wouldn’t know a GDP forecast from a grocery bill, it’s easy to ignore pesky details like reality.

Surrounded by Economic Illiterates

Salmond’s inner circle was a who’s who of economic illiterates. These were people who nodded along as he outlined his pie-in-the-sky plans for currency unions and oil-funded utopias. His advisors were, by all accounts, some of the most clueless operators in Scottish politics. One could almost imagine them sitting around in committee rooms, nodding earnestly while Salmond bellowed about “taking back control”, entirely oblivious to the fact that their plan for independence was about as watertight as a sieve.

The White Paper on Scottish Independence, Salmond’s magnum opus, should have been the document that made the financial case clear. Instead, it was a vague manifesto, riddled with holes, assumptions, and projections that would have looked optimistic even in a children’s fairy tale. Experts slammed it for lacking credibility, and yet Salmond, surrounded by sycophants, continued to peddle the fantasy. It was as if he genuinely believed his own hype—that he could wing it all the way to independence, and details be damned.

An Ego Bigger Than the Highlands

Salmond’s biggest flaw was always his ego—an ego so vast it could hardly be contained by Holyrood. He refused to accept that Scotland, as much as it loved the idea of independence, needed a practical plan. Salmond’s entire strategy was built on emotion, on the romantic idea of a nation breaking free from the chains of Westminster, with no real attention paid to how Scotland would stand on its own feet financially. His arrogance blinded him to the realities of what independence would cost.

Instead of acknowledging his mistakes after the referendum, Salmond doubled down. Defeat wasn’t his fault—it was Westminster’s, or the media’s, or anyone else’s but his. For Salmond, there was always another scapegoat, another excuse, another opportunity to play the martyr.

Even after the 2014 referendum, Salmond couldn’t resist trying to get back into the spotlight. His launch of the Alba Party was less a serious political move and more a desperate attempt to keep himself relevant. It split the independence movement further and demonstrated, once again, that Salmond’s ego was more important to him than Scotland’s future.

Gambling Away Scotland’s Future—Literally

As if his economic incompetence wasn’t enough, let’s not forget about Salmond’s gambling habit. He loved the racetrack, where he spent more time betting on horses than he did solving Scotland’s economic woes. While Scotland’s finances were slipping, Salmond was placing bets as if he were the Frankie Dettori of Holyrood, his own fortunes seemingly more important than his country’s.

His personal vices—the womanising, the gambling—paint a picture of a man more concerned with self-gratification than with the serious business of leadership. He treated politics like a game, and when it came to gambling, he was all in—on the racetrack, and with Scotland’s future. The difference is that while he could laugh off his losses at the bookies, the losses to Scotland—on everything from education to health—were far more devastating.

The Reality Check

For all his bluster, Salmond failed Scotland when it mattered most. He couldn’t put together a coherent economic plan, he surrounded himself with yes-men who knew as much about financial governance as he did about restraint, and he let his personal vices—his ego, his gambling, his womanising—get in the way of what was really important.

Salmond’s supporters may try to paint him as a visionary, but the truth is that he was a man out of his depth, leading a movement without the tools to get the job done. He failed to secure independence because, in the end, he couldn’t make the numbers add up. And no amount of flowery rhetoric or inflated self-regard could paper over that fact.

In death, as in life, the myth of Alex Salmond will continue to grow. But for those of us who lived through his years in power, the reality is far less heroic. Salmond was a man whose vices, flawed judgment, and arrogance left Scotland more divided, more indebted, and more deluded than ever before.

So before we start chiselling his face into stone or discussing state funerals, let’s take a moment to remember: Alex Salmond