New Times,
New Thinking.

Alistair Darling interview: “Salmond is behaving like Kim Jong-il”

In this week’s cover story, New Statesman editor Jason Cowley interviews Alistair Darling, leader of the Better Together campaign, Labour MP and former chancellor. Darling is fighting back, with one hundred days to save the Union of Great Britain.  

By New Statesman

Clarification, 22.36: Owing to a transcription error, Alistair Darling was incorrectly quoted using the words “blood and soil nationalism” to describe the SNP’s “non-civic nationalism”. The phrase was raised in conversation but not used directly by Mr Darling. This is the disputed exchange:

 
NS: Salmond has successfully redefined the SNP as [representing] a civic nationalism . . .
 
Darling: Which it isn’t . . .
 
NS: But that’s what he says it is. Why do you say it isn’t? What is it? Blood and soil nationalism?
 
Darling: At heart . . . [inaudible mumble] If you ask any nationalist, ‘Are there any circumstances in which you would not vote to be independent?’ they would say the answer has got to be no. It is about how people define themselves through their national identity.
 

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