NICOLA Sturgeon will not underestimate the alleged bias of the BBC when the next independence referendum is called, Alex Salmond has said.

The former first minister has repeatedly claimed the BBC was his “blind spot” during 2014’s campaign, arguing it failed to cover the event fairly.

But he insisted: “I’m quite certain that Nicola will not have that blind spot next time round.”

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Mr Salmond was addressing party activists in Edinburgh’s upmarket Morningside area, where he also signalled a return to frontline politics.

He said: “The day and the hour that Nicola fires that starting gun, I will be on my marks and ready to go for the Yes campaign."

The former politician said his blind spot during the referendum campaign was not the British establishment, but the “British Broadcasting Corporation”.

He added: “Why was my blind spot the BBC? Well, every single election campaign I had thought in 30 years – every single one, once you got into the campaign proper, broadcasting was fair and square. It was absolutely fair and square. And that didn’t happen in the referendum.”

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He later said: “Television during an election period is regulated, and it is regulated to give parity in the referendum, and it was enforced during the European referendum.

“That didn’t happen in the Scottish referendum, and it should have happened – to give parity to both sides of the argument.”

Mr Salmond also said he hold told the Leveson inquiry “the Daily Mail is the price we pay for press freedom”, adding: “And it’s a price worth paying.”

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But he insisted he “can’t understand” why more newspapers don’t back independence.

He added: “Over and above that, there’s a question of the general attitude of the press.

“I think a lot of people would like a more optimistic portrayal of the prospects of the country, and more self-belief, and more of an attitude of celebrating achievement and ambition and good things happening, as opposed to an anxiety to drag everything and everybody and every policy and every government down.”