Alex Salmond accused of ‘conjuring tricks’ on independence figures

Alex Salmond has been accused of using “conjuring tricks” in a bid to “fool” Scots into voting for independence by omitting the “hard facts” about leaving the UK.

Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael challenged the First Minister after the white paper on independence used figures from 1977 to 2007 to show people would be better off if Scotland was no longer part of the Union.

Labour leader Johann Lamont pressed Mr Salmond on the same issue at First Minister’s Questions in Holyrood, claiming more recent statistics covering the period 1982 to 2012 showed people would be almost £2,500 worse off under independence.

She accused the SNP of having “tried to airbrush the banking crisis out of their figures” in an attempt to make their case.

A spokesman for the First Minister said that the economic crash of 2007 was “a very unusual event” which would have “warped the figures”.