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| News Deal with Greens opens way for Salmond Alex Salmond yesterday struck a deal with the two Green MSPs which will almost certainly result in him becoming the new First Minister. It dealt a fatal blow to Labour leader Jack McConnell's hopes of remaining First Minister, as it makes it impossible for him to secure enough votes to beat the SNP chief next Wednesday, assuming that the Tories and LibDems abstain. And last night Alex Fergusson, the Tory MSP for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, emerged as the front runner to become Presiding Officer, replacing George Reid, after his party relented and allowed him to stand. The only other candidate so far is Margo MacDonald, veteran nationalist turned Independent, who offered to serve for a year to break the current impasse. As part of the co-operation agreement'' the remaining Green MSPs, Robin Harper from Lothian and Patrick Harvie representing Glasgow, will have the convenership of one of the major committees and a promise of early legislation to set targets limiting carbon emissions. They also agreed to oppose new nuclear power stations and to work towards independence. Greens have won a promise to be consulted on the SNP's legislative programme and its budgets over the next four years but are not bound to support the SNP in any other vote. The agreement still leaves the SNP 19 votes short of a working majority, so it is of limited benefit to either side. No agreement was reached on any stronger alliance beyond next week due to differences over transport projects. The Greens wanted to block the Aberdeen ring road and M74 extension, while retaining Edinburgh's trams, but the SNP insists it wants to keep the road projects and scrap the tram scheme. Labour claimed the deal fell short of SNP hopes and refused to concede Mr Salmond would be elected First Minister. 12:54am Saturday 12th May 2007
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Solus on 3:20pm Sat 12 May 07
This nonsense from the Liberal Democrats suggests that Scotland can only have coalition government if the people vote according to the demands of the political elites. There are some who defend the Lib Dems, and of course there is no objective reason as to why they must enter into coalition, but that avoids the issue that they refuse to even sit around a negotiating table. To sit around a table is the least, remember, they could do for the people of Scotland. Surely their duty is to the Scottish people and not to the Unionists within their party nor their party leader in London.
I do suspect a deal has been struck by Brown and Campbell with an awareness of a possible hung parliament in the future or even that Campbell may find a place in a Brown Cabinet in the Foreign Office. It may just be this is what Brown means when he says a 'Cabinet of all the talents' and there is no real reason why this could not occur. The Scottish people, I believe, will remember the Liberals and their intransigence and if Labour start a dirty tricks campaign they may well awaken the electorate to the realisation that these parties are but attempting to intimaidate the electorate into the will of the political masters. The SNP have been somewhat marginilised but Labour, surprisingly, may not recall the notion of the 'attractiveness of the outsider' and SNP can demonstrate they truly are the only party in that Parliament who have the Scottish interests as their raison d'etre. | 
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