Eyes on the prize

ALEX Salmond is expressing his disbelief at an error made by Tony Blair in the morning's papers. The Prime Minister had wrongly described the former chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland and SNP supporter Sir George Mathewson as "a former SNP candidate". "If one of my first-time candidates cavalierly said something like that they would get a..." Salmond suddenly stops. One second, two seconds. "...bollocking," he finally declares, a little reluctantly.

It was a tiny hesitation, but it spoke volumes. Formerly the most rambunctious politician on the block, the New Alex Salmond has been a revelation on the campaign trail.

Where once there was steely aggression and pithy ripostes, this campaign has seen a calmer, more measured persona - one who even thinks twice before admitting to giving bollockings.

Is it all a spin, carefully designed to woo that large chunk of the electorate who find his up-and-at-'em style a turn-off? Or has the 52-year-old economist, who is less than two weeks away from entering the history books as the first Nationalist leader to claim power in the UK, genuinely changed?

Salmond has already had a busy morning. At 7.30am he hosted a business breakfast in Edinburgh's posh Oloroso restaurant to present A Platform For Success, his blueprint for the SNP's economic plans for government.

Then he had attended a private meeting with Britain's most influential newspaper editor, Rebekah Wade of the Sun, whose edition that morning had given him a fearful pasting.

Seated in a room in the Caledonian Hotel, he is nevertheless full of customary brio and philosophical about the tabloid's treatment. There is nothing he can do about it, he shrugs, so why worry? More encouraging for him is a poll in that morning's Times which shows, less than two weeks to go, that his party is still ahead. It was this time four years ago, I remind him, that polls began to show the SNP's support falling over a cliff.

"Believe me," he asserts. "If this campaign continues - with the positive SNP campaign on the one hand and the anti-SNP Labour campaign on the other, then we will win, because it's about the SNP." Victory must feel tantalisingly close, I suggest. "It is a big effort to keep yourself calm, cool and collected. This is unchartered territory," Salmond responds.

One of his closest allies had admitted to me the previous week that being ahead in a campaign was "terrifying". After all, recent political history is littered with the corpses of front-runners who have suddenly slumped as they enter the final straight as, beneath the veneer of statesmanship, the public senses the unappealing view of a party hack. Salmond is determined to avoid the same fate - hence, as he admits, he has imposed upon himself a radical change in outlook.

"I came to the conclusion some time ago that I had to seek to build maximum consensus in a number of ways," he reflects. "Lots of Scots - not just me - love winning arguments; and sometimes you love winning arguments even when the arguments aren't even about very much; disputatiousness is part of our character: the game becomes more important than the objective. But for me this objective is so important that I am not going to allow the enjoyment of the game to interfere with the outcome, if I possibly can. I am trying to keep my eye on the prize."

It's been suggested by members of his own party that, once the prize is gained, that old disputatiousness will return. But Salmond insists the self-discipline will remain. "The job of a national party and as the leader, potentially, hopefully, as First Minister, is not just to talk to the folk who agree with me," he says. "It's my job to reach out to people who don't. I think most national parties have to represent, as far as they can, the whole of the country."

What influence does his wife, Moira, a former senior civil servant, have over all of this? Salmond has rarely talked about his private life, insisting that it should remain just that - private. "Very substantial," he says. She offers him "wise counsel", he adds. " She tells me not to take myself too seriously."

This supposed transformation of the SNP, from tribal political movement to party of the nation, all sounds very New Labour, circa 1997. Does Salmond accept the comparison? "Yes," he concedes. "Except that the cause in which we believe is a wee bit more noble in the sense that it is about the future of our country, not the career prospects of a political party. Broadening your political base, reaching out to people who previously disagreed with you and making clear that is how you want to style your politics and your attitude to people, I think it's absolutely right."

In this new guise, the SNP's pitch has also taken on a different hue. Gone are the quasi-sectarian appeals to national grievance (remember John Swinney's infamous "get the Brits out" battle cry?). Instead, Salmond has been skilfully conflating Labour's attacks on the SNP - and its warnings about the cost of independence - as attacks on the very nature of Scotland. It has allowed the SNP to position itself as the party of the Scottish "mainstream".

He uses the interview to press home his point. Of Labour's campaign, he declares: "It seems to me to be one of the most un-coordinated, old-fashioned, and thoroughly disreputable campaigns. Not disreputable, incidentally, because they are attacking me or the SNP - that doesn't matter. It's disreputable in the sense that they are attacking Scotland and Scottish self-confidence, almost at times verging on to, you know, 'It's not the SNP that's a basket case, it's Scotland that's a basket case'."

He picks up on Scotland's highly influential band of entrepreneurs, cleverly referring both to those who have already publicly allied themselves to his cause (Sir Tom Farmer, Brian Souter) and those who haven't (Sir David Murray, Sir Tom Hunter). "Whether or not they are voting for or against the SNP, not one of them would accept the argument that Scotland is somehow incapable in any sense," says Salmond. "Each one of them has spent their time outside business trying to build up Scottish confidence.

"Whether they are fully convinced, or partially convinced, or not convinced at all of the case I'm putting forward, they would never accept the nature of what's at the bottom - boiled down to its grizzly essence - the nature and heart of the Labour campaign, the black heart of the Labour campaign. They would just reject it. It is totally antithetic to what they are trying to spread and teach and communicate. This is why I believe Labour is fundamentally out of sync with Scotland."

He adds: "These people aren't all of Scottish society - they are one aspect of Scottish society, but you can find people in the arts and culture who have the same can-do attitude as far as Scotland is concerned - and that is Scotland. So the Labour campaign isn't an anti-SNP campaign, it is anti that new Scotland; it is out of date; it's out of time." For the record, Tony Blair declared in a speech in Glasgow two weeks ago that, of course, Scotland was capable of being independent if it so chose. Blair spoke then about how Salmond was "neatly conflating belief in Scotland with the separation from England". But Salmond's argument brushes all this aside.

Positivity has been his watchword throughout the campaign, and no place has been dealt more good vibes than England itself. Salmond last week revealed how he had been giving long thought to how Scotland and its "best pal" would rub along after independence. He now makes a clear distinction between the Union of Crowns in 1603 and the Act of Union in 1707.

"There was, in people's minds, a kingdom long before a political union," he says. Now, he insists, independence is only an issue about changing the latter. "We wouldn't be changing the Union of Crowns," he says. He reveals now how a meeting with Prince Charles back in 1998 appears to have changed his views on the matter. Salmond had travelled up to Balmoral for the supposedly private meeting with the Prince.

But dozens of stories appeared of the meeting of the future king of England and the Scottish young pretender, enjoying a convivial dram. "That meeting was asked for by the Palace," says Salmond. "Maybe that [the question of keeping the Union of the Crowns] was something I learned at that meeting. It is fair to say, obviously, those matters were discussed." In his new guise as the great unifier, Salmond says he believes keeping the monarchy post independence would be right.

"Is it important, apart from being a historical point? Yes, I think it is, because the monarchy to some extent symbolises a social union between the peoples of these islands." He goes on: "People want to have economic and political control of Scotland, so we can have a competitive economy, so we can take advantage of our natural assets and so we can make a contribution to the big issues; but they want to keep a close abiding ally."

All this conciliatory talk has one major effect: it is piling growing pressure on the Unionist parties - specifically the Liberal Democrats - who are now deemed to be "blocking" Salmond's hopes of putting this to us - via an independence referendum. If he wins next week, Salmond's policy is to hold the referendum in around 2010. He makes clear he believes, if successful, he could then deliver independence before the planned 2011 elections.

To do all this, it seems likely he will need the Liberals' support and he uses the interview to pile the pressure even further; going further than ever to spell out the compromises he is willing to make to get the independence question tabled.

Salmond says he wants to have a straight "yes" or "no" question. But he makes it crystal clear he would accept another question, which asks voters whether they would simply prefer a middle way, of bringing more powers to Holyrood. "I haven't ruled that out so long as I can present the case of independence to the people of Scotland," he declares. "That is the principle - to keep faith with myself and to keep faith with my party. I will be as flexible as possible within that position."

He adds later: "I have demonstrated a great deal of flexibility on this question and I have demonstrated that I could be flexible even more on content, on timing, on approach, and even on the question formulation that might be asked. That seems to me to be moving a long way."

All this might seem to some in the SNP suspiciously like a watering down. But, Salmond insists, there is no turning from putting the question of independence to the people. "What profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his soul? But for a coalition with the Liberals?"

Salmond's philosophical commitment to independence is utterly concrete. I ask him about the peculiarity of this small part of a small island, debating about independence, while elsewhere the great challenges of climate change and the rise of Asia rage on. Isn't it all a bit odd?

Not a bit of it. He launches into a lengthy exposition of Scotland's potential as an energy powerhouse of the future, leading the way in new technologies in renewables and clean energy. Scotland, he says, can have a massive role to play in allaying Europe's energy security fears, and on tackling carbon emissions. Independence is needed, he insists, in order to play that role fully; to give us a direct line to the European Commission; to clear away the daft subsidies and regulations at Whitehall that hold Scotland back. He says: "These are big issues which can help the impact on the planet and we need the powers to do that."

It is convincing stuff, yet questions over Salmond's number-crunching remain. In a recent document on Scotland's fiscal position, the SNP declared that - if the country had possession of its oil - it would be running a surplus. Since then, the Treasury has cut back its forecasts on oil revenues, leading to claims by Labour that Salmond's figures are out of date. Will he be updating them?

In terms of his calculation of Scotland's surplus, "it will be after July," he says, handily putting it all back until after the election. "In my estimate, Scotland is in surplus this year." He is equally dismissive of fears over his contentious local income tax plans. The SNP is banking on the Treasury handing over the near £400m a year it currently gives to Scottish homes as council tax benefit. But the Treasury currently says it won't. Doesn't this ruin his plans? "It will have to be politely contested, I am sure it will be won," he insists, blithely.

He may be a changed character, but clearly the confidence remains. The serenity in his demeanour is perhaps also due to the fact that he knows the new slick SNP, under his leadership, is giving this election probably the best shot it can. SNP staffers can therefore rest easy: even if they lose, bollockings from the leader will wait for another day.

Alex Salmond on...

REACHING OUT

"You have to make the attempt to make a gesture to all of the people. Not to compromise, but to communicate with everyone that you possibly can. You have to make sure that there is nobody who feels that their views are being set aside or ignored. And I have been trying really hard."

SELF-BELIEF

"The one overwhelming advantage that we have in this campaign is that we know what we are doing in this campaign and we know we are right."

LABOUR

"If I was asked to sum up the one word to describe the remaining Labour vote in Scotland it is probably sullen. There is no energy, no enthusiasm, no life."

REFERENDUM

"The idea of a referendum is fundamentally popular in this campaign. It is running like a silver thread in this campaign. And it is doing that because it is touching on something much deeper in Scottish society; and that is the whole notion of empowerment.

"There is a huge thirst, desire, and wish that people have to have more control, not just over the constitution but over lots of things."

TRIDENT

"You must have the right to say no to your country being used as a base for the next 50 years to weapons of mass destruction. These are choices that an adult, grown-up society can make and it is a choice an independent country can make."

SMART ALEX

"I'm not going to try to be less smart just to suit Labour."

Salmond: The verdict

"He is the best natural politician I have ever met and probably the best Scotland has produced in a generation. Some have talent, some have intellect, he has both and that's what makes him formidable."

Mike Russell, former SNP Chief Executive, who stood against Salmond in 2004 for the party leadership

"He is a very good debater. He's the cheeky chappie writ large. But not a good administrator, unless something has changed."

Margo MacDonald, former Nationalist MP and MSP, now an independent candidate for the Scottish Parliament

"Alex Salmond is an effective campaigner. He's confident, often arrogant and he can be intimidating in a debate. That's why Labour is having a difficult time."

Henry McLeish, former First Minister and Scottish Office minister

"He is a chancer who just can't help himself. He is prepared to take a gamble on anything, including Scotland's future."

George Foulkes, Labour candidate and fellow Hearts supporter

"He's OK, but, having worked together, I think we're both happy not exchanging Christmas cards."

Alex Bell, former SNP spin doctor