Salmond blames Brown for “age of irresponsibility”
SNP leader Alex Salmond has attacked Gordon Brown over the current financial crisis, branding him a “sub prime minister”, at his party’s conference in Perth.
In his key-note speech, Mr Salmond accused Mr Brown of being one of the causes of the current financial crisis.
He was critical of the government’s actions over the last decade and bemoaned that fact that the Royal Bank of Scotland had to be part-nationalised in the recent bail-out package.
“[Mr] Brown’s Labour bust threatens to break records – and has almost broken our banks,” he said.
“Under his watch our greatest company has had to be rescued and saddled with 12 per cent preference shares. And our oldest Bank is threatened with disappearing as an independent force.”
Mr Salmond cited Mr Brown in a recent interview where the prime minister suggested he knew what the general public were experiencing during the current difficult economic period.
“That much is true. He is certainly making a connection. Last month he was frightened of losing his job. Now tens of thousands of people are frightened of losing their jobs,” the SNP leader told delegates.
Mr Salmond went on to accuse Mr Brown of “co-authoring a calamity and called it a triumph”.
“Where did this age of irresponsibility come from? Who broke down the barriers in the financial sector? Who presided over the inflation of asset values? Who allowed the spivs and speculators of the £40 trillion derivatives markets – the financial weapons of mass destruction – to be totally unregulated?
“It might just have had something to do with the occupant of 10 and 11 Downing Street over these last eleven years.”
Mr Salmond went on to say the “age of irresponsibility” included the “financing and keeping troops in an illegal war in Iraq even after the Iraqi government asks us to leave”.
“Let the message ring out from this conference. We should have an end to the age of irresponsibility – not just in the financial sector but also in the governance of the country,” the SNP leader declared.
