 | 'Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon have already attracted support from a number of MSPs, including Kenny MacAskill, Shona Robison, Tricia Marwick, Richard Lochhead, Fiona Hyslop and Stewart Maxwell. Mr Salmond has also secured the unanimous backing of his Westminster colleagues, with Annabelle Ewing, Angus Robertson, Mike Weir and Peter Wishart declaring their support alongside MEP Ian Hudghton.' Andrew Denholm in the Scotsman, 6 th August 2004. |  |
ALEX Salmond looked to have reached an unassailable position in the SNP leadership election yesterday, after the latest in a series of senior party figures publicly backed his candidacy.
Bruce Crawford, the party's chief whip at Holyrood, became the latest heavyweight Nationalist to endorse Mr Salmond's joint campaign with Nicola Sturgeon, who is standing for deputy leader.
Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon have already attracted support from a number of MSPs, including Kenny MacAskill, Shona Robison, Tricia Marwick, Richard Lochhead, Fiona Hyslop and Stewart Maxwell.
Mr Salmond has also secured the unanimous backing of his Westminster colleagues, with Annabelle Ewing, Angus Robertson, Mike Weir and Peter Wishart declaring their support alongside MEP Ian Hudghton.
By contrast, the campaigns of rivals Mike Russell and Roseanna Cunningham have failed to attract high-profile support in similar numbers.
Ms Cunningham has been endorsed by a clutch of MSPs including Linda Fabiani, Rob Gibson, Sandra White and Christine Grahame, but Mr Russell has no big-name backers.
Last night, Ms Cunningham criticised Mr Crawford for failing to attend live debates between the leadership candidates before deciding to back Mr Salmond.
"I'm not aware that Bruce has been to any of the hustings. Perhaps he should have tried to attend some of these debates before he made up his mind," she said.
A spokesman for Ms Cunningham later pointed out that party members, not MSPs, would decide who would be the new SNP leader.
"This contest is not about celebrity endorsements. The decision is in the hands of the ordinary members, each and every one of them," he said.
"We are extremely encouraged by the levels of support for Roseanna right across the country."
Mr Russell urged MSPs and party members to scrutinise the manifestos of each prospective leader. "Every individual SNP member is entitled to support whoever they wish, but I do think it's very important that there is a close scrutiny of the plans of each candidate," he said.
Mr Crawford, who led outgoing leader John Swinney's successful leadership campaign against little-known party activist Bill Wilson last year, said he had kept an open mind since the campaign began.
But in a thinly-veiled swipe at Mr Salmond's rivals, Mr Crawford praised the former leader and Ms Sturgeon for not talking down their fellow contestants.
Both Ms Cunningham, currently deputy leader, and Mr Russell, a former SNP chief executive, have questioned the way Mr Salmond entered the campaign at the last minute, with Ms Sturgeon standing aside to run as deputy in a joint campaign.
And they claim many of the 8,200 SNP members who will decide who becomes leader and deputy leader in two separate ballots have raised concerns about Mr Salmond's plan to lead the party as an MP in Westminster until he can gain a seat at Holyrood in elections in 2007.
Mr Crawford said: "I have been impressed by the fact that Alex and Nicola are the ones with the ideas, drive and initiative and that they have not talked down their fellow contestants.
"They have run the positive campaign they promised. SNP members want the sniping and fighting within the party to stop."
Nicola Sturgeon said she and Mr Salmond were "delighted" Mr Crawford had declared his support for them. "We have worked well in the past as close colleagues and I look forward to working with him in the Scottish Parliament as we move Scotland forward to independence," she said.
Meanwhile, it emerged that computer hackers have launched an attack on Mr Russell's website.
Mr Russell's campaign team said more than 30 e-mails containing a virus had been sent to the site in the past two days.
All the e-mails contained the W32 Net Sky virus, which invades the computer's system and allows the hacker to change the text of files.
Website engineer Scott Graham said: "Fortunately we have a very robust virus-protection system but, even so, it's slowing down our system.
"The virus is coming hidden mainly in bogus letters which are being sent to the site.
"We are hoping to establish whether this is a deliberate and malicious attempt to bring down the site."
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