ACTOR Brian Cox paid tribute to the former first minister Alex Salmond saying that he was “one of the greatest political thinkers that Scotland has ever produced”.
Cox joined John Swinney as last-minute additions to the BBC’s flagship political show, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, to speak about the sudden passing of Salmond who died in North Macedonia on Saturday.
Kuenssberg started the show by asking Cox about his memories of Salmond. The veteran Scottish actor said he was “an extraordinary” man.
“He was a lot of fun. He was very entertaining,” he said.
“He had great humanity. He was probably, I think, one of the greatest political thinkers that Scotland has ever produced, possibly these islands have ever produced.
“He was an extraordinary man.”
Cox continued to speak about how Salmond had been a positive force in his life and how he had managed to shift his political allegiance from Labour to SNP.
He said: “I think his essential appeal was humanity and how he came across to other people.
“When I first met Alex, I was of course not an SNP, I was a Labour supporter.
He continued: “I was very disillusioned, especially with social democracy but I felt that the one place social democracy was happening was back in my own country.
“I had to suddenly rethink my own feelings and Alex, he enabled me to do that.
Cox then added that Salmond’s “great gift” was ironically being a great parliamentarian at Westminster, where he shared a laugh with Kuenssberg.
He said: “Alex’s favourite thing, ironically, when we lost the 2014 referendum, he was really looking forward to getting back into Parliament, because he was a great Parliamentarian.
“That was his great gift and that’s what he loved more than anything else, was the debate, and he loved, ironically, being in the House of Commons which was funny.
He ended by praising Salmond for fighting for the country and that he made Cox realise just how amazing Scotland is and that the country had been treated as a “second class citizen for some time”.
Cox wasn’t the only Scottish actor to pay tribute to Salmond as Alan Cumming also shared a testimonial to the former SNP leader on social media.
He posted a series of screenshots from his book, You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams, about an interaction he had with the then first minister of Scotland.
Cumming’s story retells the morning before the launch of the Yes campaign when he arranged to have breakfast with Salmond, his husband Grant and Cox.
He wrote about how when Cox went over his speech he began to feel nervous at the fact that his speech was brief in comparison.
Cumming explained the magnitude of the day started to creep into him but when he looked over at Salmond, he sat there cheery and cool with a cup of coffee.
Along with the story of the morning of the Yes campaign launch, Cumming shared a picture he took with him with the simple caption “RIP Salmond”.
