For just £22.50, visitors to the Edinburgh Festival last month could spend an hour with the most divisive man in Scotland. Alex Salmond… Unleashed saw the former First Minister and – since the June general election – former MP and a revolving cast of guests discuss his favourite topics: Scotland, politics and himself. His happily self-indulgent and occasionally bawdy routine was lapped up by an audience of loving fans – a devotion balanced by the total disdain his still imperious pronouncements provoke among Scottish unionists and large sections of the Scottish press.