ALEX SALMOND had almost £100,000 in cash in the private company he uses to collect his publishing royalties by the end of its first financial year, it has emerged.
The Chronicles of Deer Ltd, which the former First Minister set up in February 2015 to receive book, TV and newspaper income, filed its first accounts at Companies House last week.
The unaudited statement showed “cash at bank and in hand” of £93,576 as at 29 February 2016, as well as £12,250 due from debtors, giving gross current assets of £105,817.
However £38,690 owed to creditors reduced the net assets to £67,127.
Mr Salmond, the MP for Gordon, is the sole shareholder in the firm.
He has made more from outside interests than from his £75,000-a-year salary as an MP since being elected in May 2015.
In his first year back at Westminster, he received over £100,000 in royalties for his best-selling referendum diary The Dream Shall Never Die, plus £2000 a week for newspaper columns.
He currently receives £30,000 a year for a weekly phone-in on LBC radio.
His company’s sole director is Mr Salmond’s accountant, John Cairns, a partner at French Duncan who specialises in “tax efficient investments”, according to his biography.
In February 2015, shortly before Mr Salmond returned to the Commons after a five year absence, his SNP colleague Pete Wishart told MPs: “I believe that being a Member of Parliament is a full-time job. The suggestion that this can be combined with a second job with outside earnings is something I believe our constituents would find very difficult to accept.
“No SNP Member has a second job, a directorship or a place on a company.
Our responsibilities here are our sole concern and our only responsibility. SNP Members serve our constituents and ensure that the agenda for the nation is progressed.”
A Scottish Labour source said: “For Alex Salmond, the dream of being mega-rich has never died. While he cashes in on his political career, his real legacy in Scotland is one of division."
The latest register of MPs interests also shows six Nationalist MPs took hospitality from the body which tried to scupper the SNP’s flagship policy on alcohol minimum unit pricing.
Each accepted £379 worth of travel, accommodation and food from the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) on a “fact-finding visit to Islay”, home to many famous distilleries.
SWA legal challenges delayed the introduction of a 50p minimum unit price to tackle problem drinking for four years - until the Court of Session finally rejected their case last month.
The Islay trip included Kilmarnock MP Alan Brown, Berwickshire’s Calum Kerr, Argyll & Bute’s Brendan O’Hara, Glasgow North’s Patrick Grady, and Midlothian’s Owen Thompson.
Also present was the SNP-turned-Independent MP Michelle Thomson of Edinburgh West.
A spokesperson for Mr Salmond said: "All company earnings are published in full in his register of interests. In The Chronicles of Deer's first year of operation, The Dream Shall Never Die was published in four editions. Twice in English and also in Gaelic and Basque.”
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