There are some politicians who cheer England’s tormentors – George Robertson, the Secretary of State for Defence, for instance – but Salmond is not among them. From history, he conjures up Michael Collins, for having taken a gradualist approach to Irish independence.Last September’s referendum, he argues, was the vindication of gradualism. After the Yes vote in favour of devolved Scottish parliament and local powers of taxation, the idea of independence suddenly began to look possible to voters outside the core of convinced nationalists. This had already had a profound effect, not least south of the border, where nationalism is being equated with anti- Englishness.Salmond declares himself to be one of “the few practising Anglophiles in Scottish politics”, and cites in proof the fact that while he was in France following the World Cup last summer he got no pleasure out of England’s defeat by Romania On the contrary, he consoled a distressed English fan. Not that the city lacks for atmospherics: there’s the cold, clammy feel of the long winters; the ghostly occasional apparitions of Mount Rainier to the south; the shimmer of the Cascades to the east and the Olympic mountains to the west; and the inescapable expanses of water on all sides with their ever-changing play of light and potentially treacherous mood swings.Not a bad place, in fact, to commit a murder.. It is an attractive place to live, and mystery writers have been as much a part of the flow of incoming new residents as anyone else – Britain’s very own Michael Dibden, author of the Aurelio Zen series, moved there a few years ago and promptly turned out Dark Specter, a thriller about a religious sect set partly on one of the remoter San Juan islands.On top of that, it rains a lot and Seattlites like to read, so there is a large market right on the doorstep.The rather cold economic logic explains, perhaps, why nobody has yet managed to reinvent Seattle on the page in quite the way, say, that Raymond Chandler or James Ellroy reinvented Los Angeles.

The contemporary politicians he names are John Biffen (“the purest voice of Englishness in the Commons”), Ted Heath (“his dogged streak, his stamina”) and Tony Benn (“some weird ideas, but an open-minded sort of guy”). He says he had a “great childhood; fantastic”.The only thing he refuses to talk about is his marriage, in 1981, to Moira McGlashan, who then worked at the Scottish Office He was 26, she was 43 They have no children Naturally, people are curious. I’ve never done it, I don’t approve of it, and I’m not going to start it.” He then speaks off the record about a politician who succumbed to the temptation and whose family was embarrassed as a consequence.You can learn much about a politician by identifying his heroes None of Salmond’s are Scottish. Perhaps his marriage is a homage to a happy and secure childhood?”I don’t have much time for obvious psychological interpre-tations,” he says “I don’t use my family as a prop in politics. He also had, he says, a very wise mother.The local schools were good and he went to university in St Andrews so that he could play golf while studying economics and medieval history (best return on the Old Course: 77). To his opponents within the party the gradualism was intolerable but, after last year’s referendum success, it is no longer controversial: “We all seem to have become gradualists now,” Salmond reflects.What is he really like, besides sometimes talking too much? The received opinion in Scottish politics and journalism is that Salmond is arrogant He himself admits to “an occasional exasperation”.

One choice is to go for broke – independence or nothing, and no corrupting alliances with political opponents , especially Labour. This is the pure stream of nationalism and it offended Salmond, who believed that independence could only be achieved by political negotiations taken in stages To him, the vital first stage was the devolved parliament. His father, an electrician by trade, was a civil servant in the Scottish Office There was an elder sister and a younger brother and sister Much of the talk was about golf and politics. I like working in the streets.” Introspective self-analysis is not on the list.Salmond was born on 31 December 1954 in Linlithgow, just west of Edinburgh. At race meetings he can look hot and sweaty (he’s put on weight since injuring his back last year). Asked what he recognises about himself in press cuttings, he replies: “A sense of humour, a common touch. It was terrifying.”) His subsequent exclusion from the House for five days made him a figure on the national stage.

The issue involved – the combination of tax cuts for the rich and a poll tax for the poor – faded, but the memory of this stubborn, baby-faced Scotsman lingered on.Risk number three was standing for the party leadership in 1990, at the age of 35. Salmond says that if you don’t take your chance when it is presented, you may never get it again. This view, shared by most successful politicians, shows whether their balls are made of brass or not. He beat Margaret Ewing by 486 to 186.His fourth calculated risk is scarcely comprehensible to people outside Scotland, but it is at the heart and root of the debate within the SNP about the best way to secure Scottish independence. He had a good job as an economist at the Royal Bank of Scotland. Its senior management tolerated his politics, but the understanding was that if he didn’t get elected, he wouldn’t do it again.He took a second risk in 1988, the year after he’d become an MP. In the House of Commons, Nigel Lawson was reaching the climax of a greedy giveaway budget when Salmond stopped him in his tracks, insisting that the Chancellor let him speak.