Salmond courts trade union support

First Minister Alex Salmond today set out to woo union bosses by stressing how they and his administration were working together as "social partners".

Mr Salmond, who has forged a concordat with local authorities and sought to build links with business, said unions are crucial to growth.

He gave a list of areas ranging from a resumption of council house building to the centralisation of fire brigade control rooms, as an example of their common interest.

Mr Salmond's speech to the STUC, the first to that gathering by an SNP First Minister, also set about demolishing some of the arguments for the Union fielded yesterday by Gordon Brown.

The Prime Minister had argued that being part of the UK gave Scotland bigger clout on the world stage.

But Mr Salmond was today applauded when he told the Inverness conference: "No doubt it is a substantial influence to participate with the United States of America in an illegal invasion of Iraq.

"Just because something is of substantial influence doesn't make it right and doesn't make it positive.

"The contribution I would like to see Scotland make is a contribution to international peacekeeping and a reconciliation of differences, not to illegal invasions or Iraq or anywhere else."

He was also applauded when he went on: "It may be a substantial contribution to the world to have Europe's largest concentration of weapons of mass destruction in one of the most beautiful areas our country.

"But it doesn't make it right and it doesn't make it a positive contribution."