Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

The rejection of the Labour-Tory duopoly in the Scottish elections are finally registering. Salmond it appears is not willing to play ball with the fearmongers. Unlike the Labourites, who would have made maximum political capital out of recent events, Salmond has refused to play the race card. His response has been sensible and nuanced.

Guardian reports:

The failed terror attacks in Glasgow and London should not be used to justify detaining terror suspects for 90 days, Scotland’s first minister said today.

Alex Salmond said there was nothing in the current investigation that supported arguments that the law should be changed from 28 to 90 days’ detention for terror suspects.

Last month, before he became prime minister, it was reported that Gordon Brown wanted to increase the detention period to 90 days, although he said yesterday that now was not the time to focus on the issue and that a consensus needed to be built.

Tony Blair persistently argued for the toughened detention laws despite suffering his first House of Commons defeat on the issue in November 2005, which prompted calls for him to resign…

Asked about the detention laws today on BBC Radio Scotland, Mr Salmond, who has previously voiced doubts over the government’s tough terror legislation, said: “We have not been persuaded about the necessity for that, as indeed other parties haven’t.”

He said it was “far too early” to draw conclusions from the Glasgow incident, but added: “Obviously if new information comes forward then I’m sure all political parties would want to look at it, but currently we are not persuaded.”

Mr Salmond was a persistent critic of Mr Blair’s view of terrorism in the UK, attacking his arguments that the Iraq invasion was not a factor in the July 7 2005 attacks in London.

But Mr Salmon said today: “We should currently emphasise the united determination across all the political parties to stand together against terrorism.” He said life was getting back to normal in Scotland.

Mr McKerracher said the powers had been applied for on Saturday after the car bomb attempt. Speaking at a press conference in Glasgow today, he urged the public to be tolerant of extra security measures being brought in to protect Scotland.

He said: “We have applied for the authorisation to utilise stop-and-search and that is across every community in Scotland. That will be done sensitively and in situations where officers on the ground feel that is appropriate. Those powers were sought two days ago and that gives us an immediate 48 hours authorisation and then they will be confirmed by the home secretary.”

At the weekend, Mr Salmond had insisted that sufficient preparations had been made to deal with a terrorist attack in Scotland.