Salmond: Tory Majority To 'Erode In Months'

The Conservatives' newly won majority in Parliament will "erode and change ... within months", Alex Salmond has claimed.

The former SNP leader said the lion of Scotland "roared" as his party posted a landslide victory in the Scottish polls that meant the big beast of politics north of the border will soon be back in Westminster, growling at the new Tory government.

Having been replaced at the helm last November, he takes every opportunity to praise his successor and architect of the SNP triumph, Nicola Sturgeon.

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But he is clearly relishing his return as the new MP for Gordon after seizing the constituency from the Lib Dems.

He is predicting trouble aplenty for David Cameron's government - not least on honouring in full the pledges made to head off last year's independence vote.

Having slept off his late-night election victory, Mr Salmond chatted enthusiastically as we strode around his riverside garden in the North Aberdeenshire countryside.

Topics of discussion ranged from a neighbour’s pitch-and-putt course and almost losing his whisky collection after flooding, to the politics of Scottish independence.

There it is again - the "I" word.

Mr Salmond is quick to reassure that this election victory is not a mandate for the SNP to move ahead with independence, but when pushed about whether he believes it will happen in his newly extended political lifetime, he answers in the affirmative.

"Nicola Sturgeon pointed out that this was not a mandate for independence or for an independence referendum," he said.

"What it is a mandate for is for us to do our best, shift the UK Parliament away from austerity towards progressive politics.

"Although the Tories have an absolute majority now, that's going to erode and change within - well, not even within years, I suspect within months.

"There will be opportunities to make that voice, that cry of the heart from Scotland, heard loud and clear."

Mr Salmond smiles when he recalls the first time he set out for Westminster as just one of three SNP MPs, with a Thatcher-led Tory government and a hundred-strong majority to wrestle with.

He caused trouble for the administration then and is hell-bent on doing so again this time. It will not be long, he says, until Mr Cameron has the waters of parliamentary uncertainty lapping at his feet.

"I don't think the ground is secure under Mr Cameron's feet," he said, drawing a parallel with the case of former Conservative prime minister John Major in 1992.

He insisted the current Tory PM also faces "a range of difficult challenges".

Mr Salmond may be an old political dog, but he does not talk as though he has had his day.

He says there is not time yet for him to build the salmon pool in his stretch of river for his retirement, as some of his friends have urged.

He may feel, some will suggest, that he will have plenty of time for fishing when independence is a little nearer.