Lord Steel compares Scotland to SNP totalitarian state Lord Steel admitted he likes and admires Mr Salmond, but said he did not agree with the First Minister and did not want to hear his "inexpert views" on the match. "I am told by other broadcasters that the Salmond rugby experience was not unique for them and that SNP heavies have made more regular calls of complaint to newsrooms than all the other political parties put together, and that this is running at times close to intimidation," he said. Comparing Mr Salmond to Kim Jong-il, North Korea's former dictator, the peer said: "We are seeing a trend towards the attributes of the one-party state, where news bulletins are led by stories of what the Dear Leader has been doing today." Lord Steel said the First Minister "should be concentrating on governing the country, not appearing everywhere he can for camera calls." He said he was also worried about the SNP administration's "touch of L'etat c'est moi," referring to the alleged statement by Louis XIV of France that: "The state is me." Thus we are told that to be anti-SNP is to be anti-Scottish. It is time for them to understand that the rest of us resent being told that to be pro-Scotland you have to be pro-SNP," he said. Earlier this month Mike Russell, the Scottish Education Minister, said people who want students to contribute towards the cost of their university education are part of an "anti-Scottish" cabal. This came shortly after an outburst by Joan McAlpine, Mr Salmond's parliamentary aide, that political parties opposed to separation from the UK were "anti-Scottish." Lord Steel also used the speech to attack the SNP's "little Scotland" mindset. Although he is friends with a former Danish foreign minister, he said he does not want to see an equivalent Scottish post "with similar limited global influence." "I would rather have Scots like Robin Cook and Malcolm Rifkind wielding genuine strength as foreign ministers of a United Kingdom," he said. The peer backed an early independence referendum, saying this would give David Cameron more time before the next Westminster general election to fulfil his promise to examine devolving more powers to Scotland.