Police asked to investigate Alex Salmond's 'anti-English' jibes In a reference to Andrew Mitchell, the former chief whip, and George Osborne, the Chancellor, Alex Salmond asked the SNP conference: "Why on earth do we allow this bunch of incompetent Lord Snootys to be in positions of authority over our country?" However, a lawyer from Kelso in the Borders, who saw the comment on television news programmes, expressed concern that Mr Salmond's jibe appeared to be an attack on the English. Colin Shaughnessy wrote to Lothian and Borders Police to complain that it appeared to be "an attack on people readily identifiable to me as English, solely on grounds of race." Its official guidance states: "The Scottish Government believes that there is no excuse for any form of hate crime: it is simply not acceptable." The lawyer, whose mother was born in England and whose ancestors are "all from the Highlands," added: "I am not a member of any political party. But I do not like nationalism and I do choke on the hypocrisy of the pretence that the SNP campaign does not have an underlying anti-English aspect to it. After registering the complaint on Saturday he had a 20-minute telephone conversation with a police sergeant who told him the matter would not be reported to prosecutors. Mr Shaughnessy said: "Amusingly, he told me that those that had discussed the complaint within Lothian and Borders Police had concluded that although Mr Salmond was foolish, their collective belief was that the specific passage in the speech was an attack on what he referred to as people of the upper class." Mr Salmond made the comment at the start of his address on Saturday. Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Minister, also derided Lord Forsyth of Drumlean - the former Tory Scottish Secretary, and son of a garage owner in Arbroath - as "Lord Bufton Tufton" in his speech to the conference for opposing plans to give 16 and 17-year-olds the vote in the referendum.