Alex Salmond blames Alba Party's poor election result on BBC
9 May 2021, 13:53 | Updated: 9 May 2021, 13:55
Alex Salmond blames Alba Party's poor election result on lack of BBC coverage
Alex Salmond has slammed the BBC for its Scottish election coverage and blamed the organisation for his Alba Party's poor result in the vote.
Speaking on LBC's Swarbrick on Sunday, the ex-SNP leader told Tom Swarbrick there were two reasons behind why his party did so badly: time and television.
Having launched just over six weeks ago, Mr Salmond said Alba had insufficient time to prepare a well-structured campaign.
He explained that his party "made some of the mistakes that you make in a six-week period", including its electronic infrastructure not being "ready for a launch".
But the former first minister of Scotland insisted the reason behind his party failing to register a single MSP after the ballot was because of a lack of coverage by the BBC.
"The key thing in the election was the BBC not letting us into the television debates," he told Tom.
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"I should say, incidentally, LBC and other radio stations were entirely fair throughout the campaign and I've got no issues (with them) at all.
"But the campaign, because of Covid, was dominated by television and the BBC excluded us from the television debates and once they did that, that diktats and settled our hash effectively."
Asked whether he was outright blaming the organisation for the party's message not reaching Scots, he said: "The BBC in Wales let the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party on the main television debates and into the main coverage.
"But the BBC in Scotland refused to let Alba take part in the main debates and they dominated the television coverage.
"That is a key point. It's not a silly point. It's an absolutely key point.
"If we'd have been in the debate we would have had a different result."
