Alex Salmond shows sympathy for rates protesters in north-east

Alex Salmond has admitted some complaints over huge business rate rises are “legitimate”, days after a leading hotelier and close friend of the former first minister called for a nationwide boycott of swingeing increases.In the wake of a widespread outcry over a rates hike that has left some businesses facing increases of up to 400 per cent, he said there were companies that were “feeling the hard edge”  of the revaluation.Mr Salmond was speaking after Stewart Spence