ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Let’s talk about Scotland because the First Minister, Alex Salmond, must have had a bit of a smile on his face when he read the papers.  That’s because the Observer quotes Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael saying that the no campaign is in danger of losing to the nationalists because they have more hunger for victory.  Let’s say a very good morning to the First Minister of Scotland, good morning Mr Salmond.  Did you have a bit of a smile on your face when you heard that attributed to Alistair Carmichael about the lack of hunger on the no side?

ALEX SALMOND:  Well I’m a sunny optimistic sort of guy as you know, Dermot, but the reason that the yes campaign have got a spring in their step is not because of anything Alistair Carmichael says or doesn’t say, it’s because we believe that month by month, week by week, poll by poll, we’re gaining ground and the reason we’re gaining ground is that we’re putting forward a positive message about what Scotland can do and can be as an independent country and we know that people when faced with a positive optimistic prospectus and vision for the country will want to vote for that as opposed to the negativity, the entrenched doom laden scaremongering of a no campaign which has got nothing positive to say so we think a positive will beat a negative and a vision for Scotland’s future will trump the negativity of the no campaign.

DM: Is it also beyond the specifics of course, and I’m sure you know we’re going to talk about one of them in a moment or two, but are you pushing very much this idea that you have a chance with your vote to be part of a moment in Scottish history that will resonate through the generations if you vote yes?

ALEX SALMOND:  Yes and what we’re arguing is that what the underlying truth of Scottish independence is that the best people to govern and to shape the future of this country are the people who live and work in this country.  These are the people who will take the best decisions about the country’s future and we also know that once Scotland’s independent, every single election we’ll get the government that we vote for as opposed to the governments voted in elsewhere.  These are substantial democratic arguments for Scotland being an independent country, for this nation becoming an independent state. 

DM: Okay, the specifics, the pound.  We’ve had that row resurfacing again and another unattributed minister saying perhaps a deal could be done and then reiterated yesterday from Downing Street, from Number Eleven as well, that walking out of UK means walking out of the pound, that is copper bottomed, underlined, no place for an independent Scotland in the sterling zone.

ALEX SALMOND:  Well copper bottomed but holed below the water line.  What the important scoop in the Guardian newspaper did was of course indicate that all this bluff and bluster about not sharing sterling is a campaign tactic, a negotiating position, something the scare the natives up in Scotland.  Rather than have the mole hunt for whoever has been caught telling the truth to the Guardian, surely the no campaign should be looking at the people who dreamt up this wheeze in the first place, that’s Alistair Darling and Andrew Dunlop, named in the Guardian paper as being the key people behind persuading the Treasury to adopt a so-called uncompromising position on sterling whereas the argument that we’ve been putting forward, a currency zone is in the best interests of Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, is an argument which is based on substance and logic as opposed to being a negotiating position or something dreamt up to scare the Scots.

DM: But hold on, so we can’t believe the Chancellor, the Shadow Chancellor, the Chief Secretary, the Governor of the Bank of England and actually just this morning I was talking to the Welsh First Minister, they are all saying you can’t be in sterling.  It’s just a negotiating position is it?

ALEX SALMOND:  Well if their ministerial colleagues don’t believe them why should we believe them in Scotland and unless you are suggesting that the Guardian newspaper and Nicholas Watt, a very important and respected journalist, made up this story means that the people within the government themselves don’t believe this or at least know it is merely a campaigning tactic, it’s bluff and bluster and now that has been exposed.  You wouldn’t have had the panicky reaction that we’ve had over the last 48 hours with leak inquiries and mole hunts and reaffirmed statements rushed out if the no campaign didn’t realise that their scaremongering has been holed below the water line.  It’s a very, very difficult 48 hours for the no campaign and it’s going to get a lot worse because they are not basing their arguments on a positive vision of the future, they have based their arguments on whatever they can say or do in this campaign to try and intimidate the people of Scotland out of voting for independence and their bluff has been called.

DM: Just how seriously are you taking this story?  It sounds to me, Mr Salmond, that you know who it is. 

ALEX SALMOND:  I know … I’m sure Nicholas Watt will never name his sources but what I do is I believe the story and of course the story can’t really be denied because we know what the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Ed Balls say about this but unless you believe the story was made up, we know their own colleagues don’t believe them because the story is that their arguments are being exposed as a campaign tactic, something to intimidate Scotland so really George Osborne and Ed Balls joining hands and reiterating the scaremongering doesn’t deny the story.  The story is that one of their key colleagues has said this is our negotiating position, a campaign tactic, something that Alistair Darling and Andrew Dunlop persuaded the Treasury to do although they didn’t really want to do it anyway.  It seems to me that this story is a very important demolition of the no campaign.

DM: Have you had any back channel – as the word is – back channel contacts on this, any informal contacts that there are deals to be done?

ALEX SALMOND:  No, I leave the informal and formal contacts between the umbilical link between the Conservative and Labour parties that’s at the heart of the no campaign and we’re going to spend our time persuading the people that matter in these equations, that’s the people of Scotland, to vote for a better more optimistic vision of the future.  That’s why we’re gaining ground and that’s why their campaign tactics are being exposed. 

DM: Okay, now you talk about realistic, when we talk about this unnamed minister and this minister has said that there are the outlines of a deal.  Part of that deal has to be about the nuclear submarine base at Faslane which of course you are against, you want to get rid of, do you think that could be renegotiated, that it could stay under an independent Scotland?

ALEX SALMOND:  No, because our opposition to nuclear weapons is not a campaign tactic or a negotiating position, we believe in it.  It’s one of our arguments for Scottish independence.  Of course there will be negotiations around the currency zone but they won’t concern nuclear weapons, they’ll be about debt levels because the difficulty of the Osborne-Balls position is that if you claim ownership of the pound because the UK is the continuous state and can seize all the assets whether it’s the Bank of England or the BBC, then it ends up with all the liabilities as well.  The thing incidentally is that the Treasury has already indicated to the markets that they’ll accept liability for UK debt under all circumstances so negotiations will take place about share of debt not about things like Trident where we are unambiguously opposed to it and of course in our White Paper, I think on page 14, I’m not quite sure of the page reference, indicated will have to be removed from Scotland within the first parliamentary term of an independent Scotland.

DM: Okay, First Minister, thank you very much indeed, Alex Salmond the First Minister there in Aberdeen.