Salmond takes his ‘shopping list’ to Osborne

Alex Salmond presented George Osborne with a 40th birthday bottle of whisky at their talks this morning. And there or thereabouts the harmony ends. The two sides can’t even agree on the “meeting over-run” length. The First Minister’s team says it was meant to be half an hour long but (implied not said) the presentation was so compelling, the mandate so unanswerable that it went on for 2 hours. The Treasury says it did over-run but it was always in the diary for something not wildly short of two hours.

The substance? Alex Salmond has begun outlining his case for more powers and fast. He wants changes to the Scotland Bill, already on its way through Parliament, and he reserves the right to vote down the Bill when it is in front of the Scottish Parliament if he doesn’t like their efforts. On his shopping list are more borrowing powers beyond the ones already in the bill (he might get something on this), the power to set his own corporation tax levels (the Treasury called that “not a runner,” though not to his face I understand), proceeds from the fossil fuel levy and changes to the North Sea oil tax hike announced in the Budget (he’s been told he won’t get the whole thing dropped but he might influence some changes in implementation).

I caught up with him at the Foreign Press Association HQ where he was questioned by overseas journalists (notably by Canadians and the Spanish, who know a thing or two about separatist movements). He insisted he would not be adding more and more to his shopping list as some have accused him of doing. He said people had to choose whether they were accusing him of trying to creep up Scottish autonomy (so that independence didn’t look so frightening when he eventually poses the question around 2015/16) or whether they were accusing him of trying to ask for the impossible and create friction zones with Westminster. I suggested it was quite possbile to do both in tandem and he suggested I was being “cynical.”