Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond to give him his full name was born in his parents’ home at 101 Preston Road, Linlithgow, on 31 December 1954.] He was the second of four children born to his father and mother, Robert and Mary, both of whom worked in the Civil Service, Robert, who served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, had originally worked as an electrician, and his family had been resident in Linlithgow since the mid-18th century. Salmond was educated at Linlithgow Primary School, before attending Linlithgow Academy from 1966 to 1972. He then studied at Edinburgh College of Commerce from 1972 to 1973, gaining an HNC in Business Studies, and was then accepted by the University of St Andrews, where he studied Economics and Medieval History, After graduating in 1978, he entered the Government Economic Service (GES) as an assistant economist in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland, Two years later he joined the Royal Bank of Scotland, where he worked for seven years, initially as an assistant economist, then in 1982 he was appointed oil economist, and from 1984 he worked as a bank economist as well as continuing to hold the position of oil economist. While with the Royal Bank, he wrote and broadcast extensively for both domestic and international outlets. In 1983, Alex created a “Royal Bank/BBC oil index” that is still used today. He became active in the SNP when he joined the Federation of Student Nationalists at the University of St Andrews in 1973, his conversion is generally credited to his then girlfriend, Debbie Horton, an English student from London, who was secretary of the St Andrews University Labour club. After an argument in December 1973, she told him: “If you feel like that, go and join the bloody SNP”. The next day he did, then the following day he and a friend attended the sparsely populated AGM of the university branch of the Federation of Student Nationalists. Being the only two fully paid-up members of the SNP at the university, they were duly elected president and treasurer.

Alex started his political life as a committed left-winger inside the SNP and was a leading member of the socialist republican organisation within it, the 79 Group. He was, along with other group leaders, suspended from membership of the SNP when the 79 Group was banned within the larger party. In 1981, he married Moira McGlashan, then a senior civil servant with the Scottish Office. Following the SNP’s National Council narrowly voting to uphold the expulsion, he and the others were allowed back into the party a month later, and in 1985 he was

elected as the SNP’s Vice Convener for Publicity. In 1987 he stood for Parliament in Banff and Buchan and defeated the incumbent Conservative MP, Albert McQuarrie. Later that year Alex became Deputy Leader of the SNP. He was at this time still viewed as being firmly on the left of the party and had become a key ally of Jim Sillars, who joined him in the House of Commons when he won a by-election for the seat of Glasgow Govan in 1988. As an MP, he was ordered out of the House of Commons for a week in 1988 when he interrupted the chancellor of the Exchequer’s annual budget speech to protest that the Conservative government’s decision to introduce a poll tax in Scotland while reducing income tax for more affluent people across the United Kingdom When Gordon Wilson stood down as SNP leader in 1990, Alex decided to contest the leadership. His only opponent was Margaret Ewing, whom Sillars decided to support. This caused considerable consternation amongst the SNP left as the two main left leaders were opposing each other in the contest. he went on to win the leadership election by 486 votes to Ewing’s 146. His first test as leader was the general election in 1992, with the SNP having high hopes of making an electoral breakthrough. Whilst considerably increasing its share of the vote, it failed to win a large number of seats. Sillars lost his, causing him to describe the Scottish people as ’90-minute patriots’. This comment ended the political friendship between Salmond and Sillars, and Sillars would soon become a vocal critic of Salmond’s style of leadership.

The SNP increased its number of MPs from four to six in the 1997 general election, which saw a landslide victory for the Labour Party. After the election, Labour legislated for a devolved Scottish parliament in Edinburgh. Although still committed to a fully independent Scotland, he signed the SNP up to supporting the campaign for devolution, and, along with Scottish Labour leader Donald Dewar and Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Jim Wallace, played an active part in securing the victory for devolution in the Scotland referendum.