Charm offensive: The fine line between courting business and controversy In successfully courting the nation's big business leaders, Alex Salmond must beware courting controversy too SOMETIMES, being insulted feels better than being praised. Last week, Alex Salmond was on the receiving end of both. From Donald Trump came the invective: Salmond had "betrayed" the American tycoon over plans to allow a wind farm to be built off the coast of his new golf course in Aberdeenshire. The praise came from Rupert Murdoch. "He's an amusing guy and I enjoy his company," declared the 81-year-old media mogul last week as he was asked to talk about Scotland's First Minister at the Leveson Inquiry. I would describe it [our relationship] as warm. Trump's attack was met with little concern within the SNP last week. "He made a fool of himself," said one figure, of the tycoon's appearance at the Scottish Parliament. But, with the shadow of phone hacking still hanging over the News Corp empire, Murdoch's praise was a different matter. Salmond had been prepared to back News Corp last year in its takeover of BSkyB, the inquiry heard. The evidence revived interest in how Salmond had continued to entertain the mogul in spite of the damning revelations about hacking the mobile phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. The warm words offered by Murdoch went down badly in some quarters of Scotland's governing party. "I don't get it," sighed one displeased Nat. You never see Salmond these days in a photograph with someone who is on a below average wage. The complaints may be there, but the First Minister and his team this weekend are grandly insouciant about the rough week their man has suffered. They point to the fact that it was Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, not Salmond, who was the main man in the firing line last week as revelations upon revelation poured out of Royal Court of Justice in London. They note that the name-calling at Holyrood last week, which culminated in Johann Lamont's badgering of Salmond over his relationship with Murdoch, was strictly one for the "Holyrood bubble." They note that, on Thursday afternoon, after Lamont had laid into Salmond, a day-tripper to Edinburgh who had decided to watch First Minister's Questions was so angered by Lamont's tone that they had headed straight to the SNP HQ across the road afterwards and donated £50 to the cause. A storm in a teacup has passed, they insist. But are they right to be so relaxed? This coming week marks the first anniversary of the SNP's sensational Holyrood election victory last year. That success, paving the way for the imminent independence referendum, has seen Salmond's status go into the stratosphere. This week, Salmond has another historic tick box in his sights: the prospect of ending four decades of Labour rule in Glasgow. His foes hope that all this success is going to his head; that, in Johann Lamont's phrase, he now just wants to use his newfound status to suck up to rich men like Murdoch. Salmond, they note, is not lacking in the pride department. After such hubris, is the fall on its way? Or are the First Minister and his team right this weekend to argue that the SNP have nothing to worry about as they gear up to make history? The First Minister has enjoyed a remarkable year by anyone's standards. From his measured victory speech outside Prestonfield House Hotel in Edinburgh last May to the lecture circuit across the UK, from being named Briton of the Year by the Times and afforded flattering interviews in Time magazine, Salmond has not just had to rely on Murdoch's flattery for accolades; the praise has come thick and fast from all quarters. According to a poll in February, his poll ratings may have fallen a little in recent months, but they remain the stuff of dreams for Messers Miliband, Clegg and Cameron. "In terms of who is the person best able to make waves in Scotland, then that is Salmond," says John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University. With the quest for independence ensuring party discipline, Salmond rests easy in the knowledge his party is "tight and cohesive," as one adviser puts it. We are not just a party, we are a movement. And the competition, at Holyrood remains pretty thin. Can you say who is leading the Tories or Labour in Scotland? No-one can say they don't know who is leading us," says one SNP minister. That clear direction provided by Salmond, aided by a team of smart ministers like John Swinney and Alex Neil, has been one of the key plus points of their five years in office. Union chiefs, local government bosses and - yes - the business world have all been largely impressed. Last year, he famously managed to persuade the adamantly Unionist Sir David Murray to support his re-election as First Minister - to which add Murdoch, Sir Tom Farmer, Sir Brian Soutar and Jim McColl. Another admirer is John McGlynn, founder of Airlink, one of the largest owners of car parks and commercial property in Scotland. Neither a member of the SNP, nor a supporter of independence, until recently he was a prominent fundraiser for the Scottish Conservatives. He then quit the party last year over a split with Ruth Davidson. "I have a challenge to every other MSP in the Scottish Parliament," he said recently. Try waking up one day and realising that there is a very real economic crisis, that rather than having all your staff telling you what cheap headline and cheap shot you can make today, ask them to tell you what you as the elected representative for your constituency can do to create new jobs, to help small businesses be more successful. Try taking a leaf from the First Minister's book - why not get out from behind your desk and go and meet some business people from companies large and small; you might just learn something new. The problem, however, comes when politicians are seen to become business's servants. Last week's February 2011 email from Frederic Michel, the public affairs director of News Corp, declaring that Salmond was available "whenever we need him" to lobby on the company's behalf, was toxic. A typically brash Salmond was interviewed that night, dismissing as "conspiracy" any claim he had written or talked to Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, about the bid. No one, that evening, had actually accused him of so doing. The following day, Salmond finally acknowledged he had been prepared to speak to Hunt on the matter because "Scottish interests" were in play. Given the fact that the Scottish Sun was, at the same time, concluding discussions about whether or not to back the SNP at last year's Scottish elections, opposition parties needed no time in deciding what Salmond's real motives were: he had abased himself before Murdoch in the search of approval. Was the News Corp takeover of BSkyB really so important to the Scottish economy, as Salmond claims? Stuart Cosgrove, director of Creative Diversity at Channel 4 notes: "It's a moral maze. There is no question that BSkyB is a major employer in Scotland and that the data and subscriptions functions of Sky are important to Scotland's modern economy. Scottish interests were genuinely part of the debate but a peripheral part. Leveson's big theme has been to lay bare the scandal of hacking and the less palatable aspects of political influence, where a generation of politicians were too close to the Murdoch empire. I suspect we are only in the second act of a four-part drama - and Alex Salmond is a walk-on part. This sense - that Salmond was only a bit-player in last week's drama - has convinced his team this weekend that the First Minister's Teflon coat remains untarnished by events. They also argue that the opposition has failed to find a killer fact. The opposition is always trying to get Alex on innuendo and perception. They did it on Trump the first time round. Some of it will stick, some of it won't," says one party figure. With public trust in the SNP still running high, in stark contrast to the UK parties, the likelihood is that this is all probably true. But a bigger question hangs over Salmond, not just about the damage of last week's dealings, but about his wider political strategy ahead of the independence referendum. For some Nationalist supporters on the Left, they believe Salmond is getting it wrong. Salmond's tiny inner circle has got too defensive and fearful of heavyweight attacks against the goal of independence. Terrified of a thumbs-down from big business, they therefore believe he is overdoing the charm offensive. The SNP, they note, is still a party of the centre left. Yet Salmond last week headed down to London to speak to the Institute of Directors about his plans to cut corporation tax. The distrust also extends to other areas, including hints that the party is set to ditch its opposition to membership of Nato. They seem to think the plan is to appeal to everybody and that you just need to find the weak spots and fill them up, and you'll win. You have now got a whole bunch of people on the Left who are pretty disillusioned with them," says one activist. The mood was summed up in an influential commentary earlier this month by Robin McAlpine, the director of the Jimmy Reid Foundation. There was a danger, he noted, that Salmond was turning the SNP into a version of New Labour. If the leadership is to allow the impression that there is a semblance of a project to create New SNP by ditching issues of principle then it will suffer the fate of New Labour. No-one likes a sell-out," he warned.