Little Britannia got the chance to ask Salmond a question earlier this week. We’re still waiting on the answer.

A mere stone’s throw away from Westminster, Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond preached his independence sermon to a packed audience. The event, hosted by the New Statesman, was Eck’s opportunity to charm those living south of the border, despite his loyal cybernat followers’ apparent dislike for England and everything in it.

Nonetheless, I was keen to hear what The Man Who Wants to Break Up Britain had to say for himself and hoped to challenge him face-to-face. Is there actually any evidence, apart from his word, that a separate Scotland would be the land of oil and money?

I was joined by two of my oldest, dearest friends who, despite being proud Scots from an old Paisley family, are both being denied a vote on the future of their country because they currently live in London.

On our way in, we were offered a copy of a New Statesman issue dedicated to the independence campaign and what looked like a substantially thinner version of the White Paper (it must have been the ‘no-picture’ edition).

We were also greeted with this sight . . . .

I’m not exactly president of the Alex Salmond Fan Club, but even I would agree that the man’s a most articulate and animated speaker. What I saw at the London lecture though was definitely not the confident, capable politician who trumpets to Holyrood every week. His speech style seemed to be more Gordon Brown than Alex Salmond.

The crux of Eck’s speech was that independence would be in the best interest for the whole of the United Kingdom, not just for his visionary Scotland. How exactly he could prove this though remained unanswered, as did the question I put to him at the end: why he lied about the EU legal advice.

Referring to London as a “dark star”, Salmond said that an independent Scotland would be a “Northern light” and it would rebalance “the economic centre of gravity of these islands”.

A dark star? That’s hardly a term you would use to describe the home of the people you are trying to ingratiate yourself with. Perhaps he meant a Death Star and was likening David Cameron and George Osborne to Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. We all know that it wouldn’t be an independence talk without an angry finger jabbed at the Tories, though Alex Salmond is certainly no Han Solo.

He proclaimed in his speech: “The Conservative Party have lost every General Election in Scotland since 1959 but have succeeded in ending up in government for 31 of the last 55 years.”

That might be true Alex, but your party got 491,386 votes at the 2010 election, while 412,885 people in Scotland voted for Cameron’s Conservatives. Add to that the number of folk who voted Lib Dem and you’ve got more Scots who chose the coalition at Westminster than voted for the SNP. Just keep that one quiet though and maybe no one will say anything.

The First Minister also assured us in his speech that Scotland would not be a foreign country in the event of independence, “any more than Ireland, Northern Ireland, England or Wales could ever be foreign countries to Scotland”. Really?

Scotland would likely have a different currency, new passports, a start-from-scratch defence force and would have to build its own embassies. It begs the question: what exactly are the Nationalists offering? It seems to be some kind of flat-packed IKEA package; a sort of pretend independence more alike to a flimsy pop-up tent attached to the UK.
 

After the speech came the Q&A session and it was here that we started to see the 'real Alex' again. Unfortunately for him, his worst nightmare (me) was in the audience, poised with my Union Jack notepad and pen to grill him on the EU.

“I would like to know,” I began, “exactly why you are unwilling to disclose the legal advice regarding the EU.”

No answer. Next question.

A gentleman from The Independent was sitting behind me and tapped my shoulder. "He didn't answer your question,” he said. “That’s not on. Shout down and say to them.”

Jason Cowley, editor of the New Statesman, heard the commotion from the stage and asked if everything in the second-back row was ok. “He didn’t answer her question,” the Independent journalist said.
 

Eck played the innocent. "What question?" he asked. I looked directly at him and said: "The question about the EU legal advice. You haven't answered me."

What came next was a rather defensive waffle - "it's there if you look for it" (where?) and other bold claims – before he tapered off into a completely different subject.

I have since Tweeted the First Minister and watched the tumbleweed blow past as I await a reply. No need; his silence has answered my question nicely.