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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: The Home Secretary is warning that Britain could face its biggest constitutional crisis since the abdication of Edward VIII if Labour comes into power with the backing of the Scottish National Party.  Well the man hoping to lead that party in Westminster has been described as both a pickpocket and a puppet master and earlier this week Alex Salmond laughed off a video which showed him joking that he’d be writing the next Labour budget and he joins me now from Aberdeenshire.  A very good morning to you, Mr Salmond, you’d better respond to those charges then, you are the Milk Tray man who is picking the English pocket and also your party is liable to cause a constitutional crisis.  

ALEX SALMOND:  Well I think the best thing to do is to laugh at this Tory campaign.  I actually thought I looked like, remember the man in the Black Magic adverts all these years ago, debonair, dashing, dressed in black.  I think you and I are just about old enough to remember that but this stuff from Theresa May about the worst constitutional crisis since 1936, I mean has she forgotten the Second World War or more recently the illegal war in Iraq which the Labour party and the Conservatives dragged this country into?  For goodness sake, the woman is overwrought, as indeed is David Cameron.  We’ve got a Prime Minister who can’t remember the name of his football team and a Home Secretary who is becoming a social media parody. There are whole sites going up making fun of Theresa May’s panic and desperation so the best thing to do, and this applies not just in Scotland but right across the country, is to start laughing at this Conservative campaign.

DM: Let’s talk about what the SNP does then with however many seats you get.  The people of Scotland voted against independence, you’ve accepted that and you are now saying as the SNP it is our duty then to get you the best deal with can within the United Kingdom.  Isn’t there a danger for the SNP though that you do very well at that and the people of Scotland come to like that situation and want it to stay as it is, that link with the UK?

ALEX SALMOND:  Well I think what people in Scotland understand is it is going a good thing for Scotland to have a strong group of Scottish National Party MPs but as Nicola Sturgeon has been brilliantly laying out in this campaign, it is going to be a good thing for those who believe in progressive politics across the UK.  People who want an increase rather than a decrease in public spending, people who care about health service, the education system right across these islands.  I know that’s why the SNP has such momentum because we are putting forward a positive inspiring vision as opposed to this nonsense from the Conservative party and a pretty negative campaign from the Labour party as well.  I mean politics is about inspiring people, now your point about won’t people be happy, we’re in an interesting situation where the stars are coming to alignment and a group of Scottish MPs, of SNP MPs, could have a substantial influence in the House of Commons.  Unfortunately that doesn’t happen very often and people know that the way you can guarantee to always get a government of your choice in Scotland at every election is to have an independent Scotland so people understand the difference between having influence for the benefit of Scotland, for the aid of progressive politics across the UK in this election and a situation where an independent Scotland would bring about where you always got the government of your choice.  

DM: That’s the point isn’t it?  You mentioned there the Labour attack as well and Gordon Brown was out on the stump the other day wasn’t he, warning about SNP chaos and constant crisis he said you would cause in Westminster.  He’s got a point hasn’t he, that it’s in the SNPs interests that you are thwarted in some of demands you make for Scotland so you can go back to the people of Scotland and say, there you go, it doesn’t work for us in the United Kingdom, we have to have another go at independence.

ALEX SALMOND:  Gordon should know better of course but what a contrast the pictures made yesterday with Gordon speaking to a tiny meeting of Labour activists and Nicola Sturgeon addressing thousands of women, thousands of women on the streets of Glasgow in a positive inspiring way.  This is the contrast between the campaigns, why is the SNP surging again in the opinion polls this morning?  It’s because our message stands in contrast to everything everybody else is hearing with the exception of course of Leanne Wood and Plaid Cymru and the Green Party in England who are also trying to fight positive campaigns but that positive inspiring message to these thousands of women in the streets of Glasgow, that’s what moves people into politics.  Not these doom laden alarmist warnings, whether they come from Theresa May or Gordon Brown.  

DM: Just tell us this, Mr Salmond, about another referendum.  I’m not going to ask you when because we none of us know do we, but you said, your leader said, all SNP representatives say it will be when the people of Scotland decide there should be another referendum.  Well how do they signal that desire?

ALEX SALMOND:  Well you remember these leadership debates a long time ago when everybody agreed with Nick, now we all agree with Nicola and Nicola has laid this out extremely well.  She has pointed out that you can only have another referendum on independence when the people of Scotland vote for a party or parties which put that in their manifesto for a Scottish election.  So the Westminster election is about getting more power and influence for Scotland and helping people across the UK in terms of progressive politics, that’s what this election is about.  You’d have to have a situation in a future Scottish election where people voted for a party or parties pledged to hold an independence referendum and that is why the people, it’s the people of Scotland who’ll decide if and when there is another independence referendum.

DM: So what we need to do is put a date on it Mr Salmond, you’re talking about next year and the Scottish parliamentary elections and the SNP no doubt will put that in their manifesto.

ALEX SALMOND:  Well that’s entirely a matter for Nicola Sturgeon and she has made it clear that you would have to have a substantial change in circumstances and when asked what that might be, she gave the example of perhaps Scotland being dragged out of the European Union against the wishes of the Scottish people and she has put forward a solution to avoid that happening of course and that is to say any such referendum that was held would have to have a majority in the component parts of the United Kingdom, that’s Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England, since we are all meant to be equal partners in the United Kingdom.  One of the things that is motivating people to vote SNP in Scotland, I think Julia Hartley-Brewer earlier on in your programme put her finger on this, that only a few months ago we were told by the Tory and Labour parties that they wanted Scotland to play a big role in the parliament of the United Kingdom as an equal partner and now it looks, when we are going to play a big role, now Cameron and May and all these people are saying, oh no, we didn’t realise you meant that big and saying somehow SNP and Scottish MPs will be illegitimate and not be on the same basis as everyone else in the House of Commons.  That’s really irritating people in Scotland and a bit more on this campaign by the way, you know the eternal argument about the number of pandas and the number of Tory MPs in Scotland?  If they are not very careful that will be settled two-nil in favour of the pandas.  

DM: Okay Mr Salmond, thank you very much indeed.  Alex Salmond there in Aberdeenshire.