Alex Salmond: I could have saved RBS from meltdown It is in Scottish interests for RBS to be successful and I would like to offer any assistance my office can provide. Good luck with the bid," he said. The same year Mr Salmond also called for lighter regulation of the banking and financial services sectors, criticising the UK's regime as "gold plated." Jackson Carlaw, the Scottish Conservative deputy leader, said: "It is to the world's regret that this view he could have been the saviour of RBS didn't come to mind when he wrote the infamous "gain yersel" letter to Fred Goodwin. It goes without saying that the First Minister has an ego, but this latest claim is absolutely staggering and utterly risible. Willie Rennie, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader, added: "Alex Salmond's ludicrous attempt to rewrite history over his support of RBS" exploits is dealt a fatal blow by his own pen." His intervention also prompted mockery and derision on Twitter, with Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, saying: "If he was on Apollo 13 they'd have landed on the moon." Adam Tomkins, professor of public law at the University of Glasgow, tweeted: "If only he'd been on the pitch at the Murrayfield, New Zealand would have been thrashed." Mr Salmond told the Scottish Sun that he promised Charles Winter, RBS's then chief executive, that he would not stand again if he did not win the Banff and Buchan seat at the 1987 general election. "If that didn't happen then I hope and believe we could have avoided the international banking crisis," he said. I'm not like Gordon Brown thinking I could save the world but I might have been able to save the Royal Bank from the company into which he fell. Mr Salmond was stood down as SNP leader on Friday and will stage his valedictory press conference tomorrow, before being replaced as First Minister by Nicola Sturgeon. In a separate interview with the Daily Record, he launched an extraordinary attack on the BBC's coverage of the independence referendum by comparing it to a "state broadcaster" screening propaganda. Nick Robinson, the BBC's political editor, became a hate figure for the nationalists after challenging Mr Salmond over big business warnings about independence at a press conference then continuing to intervene after the First Minister did not answer all parts of his question. Thousands of Yes campaigners descended on BBC Scotland's Glasgow headquarters calling for Mr Robinson to be sacked and he was loudly booed when he appeared at an eve-of-poll rally. Mr Salmond said some London-based BBC journalists expressed "their own view of what should and shouldn't happen" and the Corporation was "immersed in state power." He added that Brian Taylor, BBC Scotland's political editor, should have anchored all the coverage. He also insisted that the Unionists" offer of extra powers, and not the economy or currency, had decided the referendum despite polling by Lord Ashcroft suggesting otherwise. "Whatever policies were put forward, however good, were going to be subjected to a campaign to undermine them," he said.