????Scotland’s pro-independence leader Alex Salmond easily won the final TV debate last month as Scotland threatens to secede from the United Kingdom. ????SCOTTISH nationalist leader Alex Salmond said Tuesday there was nothing new in London’s offer of greater powers to Scotland and that the unionist campaign was falling apart ahead of next week’s referendum. ????Salmond said the offer of more powers that has been endorsed by Britain’s three main political parties was “a-back-of-the-envelope non-plan.” ????“There’s actually nothing new in this package whatsoever. This is a retreading, a repackaging, a re-timetabling of what they said in the Spring,” he told reporters in Edinburgh. ????“This is a day the ‘No’ campaign finally fell apart,” he added. ????On Aug. 25 Salmond won a final U.S.-style TV debate. ????A surge in Scottish support for breaking away from the United Kingdom has made an independence vote too close to call. ????The number of people in the TNS poll saying they would vote “No” to independence fell to 39 percent from 45 percent a month ago while “Yes” support leapt to 38 percent from 32 percent. ????The fate of the United Kingdom is in the balance after a YouGov poll in the Sunday Times put the pro-independence camp slightly ahead for the first time this year and led to a fall in the pound and British share prices. ????Sterling held near a 10-month low Tuesday. ????In an attempt to turn the tide, Britain’s most prominent politicians rushed to offer Scots more powers, which steps nationalists said betrayed panic within the British elite. ????Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a Scottish Labor politician vilified by the ruling Conservatives for presiding over the 2008 economic crisis, proposed a timetable for the devolution of further powers to the Scottish Parliament. ????Prime Minister David Cameron’s job could be at risk if Scots voted for independence in the referendum. Odds on Cameron losing his job were cut to 8/1 from 16/1 by Ladbrokes. ????Following an independence vote, Britain and Scotland would face 18 months of negotiations over how to carve up everything from North Sea oil and the pound to European Union membership and Britain’s main nuclear submarine base. ????Cameron has been largely absent from the debate after conceding that his privileged English background and center-right politics mean he is not the best person to win over Scots, usually more left-wing than the English. ????That has left the opposition Labor party with much of the burden of trying to convince Scots to stick with the union. ????Polls show the “No” camp’s lead evaporated in late August as many traditionally unionist Labor voters switched towards backing independence. ????Speaking for the unionist campaign in a miners’ welfare club in central Midlothian on Monday evening, Brown said discussions over further powers would begin the day after a “No” vote, with legislation put before the British parliament by January 2015. ????It would give the Scottish Parliament more power over welfare, finance, social and economic policy, he said. ????“This moves us as close to federalism as we can,” said Brown, one of the only British politicians that nationalist leader Salmond is said to fear. ????“Scotland is already a nation,” Brown said. “We are proud of our history and culture. Do we want to sever all constitutional links with our friends, our neighbors, our relatives in England, Wales and Northern Ireland?” ????The intervention by Brown, who remains popular in Scotland, was welcomed by Britain’s three main political parties and a source in Cameron’s office. ????Opposition Labor leader Ed Miliband called on people across the United Kingdom to fly the white-on-blue Scottish Saltire flag as a gesture of unity with the Scots. ????“We want cities, towns and villages across the U.K. to fly the Saltire and send a message to Scotland: stay with us,” Miliband said in a statement. ????Salmond was born in his parents’ home at 101 Preston Road, Linlithgow, West Lothian, Scotland in December 1954. He is the second of four children born to Robert Fyfe Findlay Salmond. Salmond, who served in the Royal Navy during the World War II, had originally worked as an electrician, and his family had been residents in Linlithgow since the mid — 18th century. Salmond attended the local Linlithgow Academy from 1966 — 1972. He studied at Edinburgh College of Commerce from 1972 to 1973, gaining an HNC in Business Studies, and was then accepted by the University of St. Andrews, where he studied Economics and Medieval History. In 1978, he entered the Government Economic Service as an Assistant Economist in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland, part of the now defunct Scottish Office. Two years later, he joined the staff of the Royal Bank of Scotland where he worked for seven years, initially as an assistant economist. ????Salmond became active in the Scottish National Party (SNP) when he joined the Federation of Student Nationalists at the University of St. Andrews in 1973. ????When Gordon Wilson stepped down as SNP leader in 1990, Salmond decided to contest the leadership. ????His only opponent was Margaret Ewing, whom Sillars decided to support. This caused considerable consternation amongst the SNP left as the two main left leaders were opposing each other in the contest. Salmond went on to win the leadership election by 486 votes to Ewing’s 146. ????Salmond was elected by the Scottish Parliament as first minister in 2007. He was the first nationalist politician to hold the office of first minister. He reduced the size of the Cabinet from nine members to six and said he would seek to govern on a “policy by policy” basis. In order to concentrate on his new role as first minister, he stood down as the SNP group leader at Westminster and was replaced by Angus Robertson. ????The Guardian reported in November 2007 that Salmond believed Scotland would be independent within “the next decade.” ????In the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, the SNP won by a landslide and emerged with an overall majority. As a result of this, Salmond had the ability to call a referendum on Scottish independence. On Jan. 9, 2011, he announced that a referendum would be held in autumn 2014. ????Salmond and his wife Moira have never had children and closely protect their private lives. Moira Salmond, formerly McGlashan, was a senior civil servant and became her future husband’s boss when he joined the Scottish Office in the 1970s. The two were married in 1981. Moira Salmond is 17 years older than Alex. ????(SD-Agencies) | 