Nicola Sturgeon would not have called for a second independence referendum if she knew a snap general election was about to take place, according to Alex Salmond.

The former SNP leader said his successor "cannot be blamed" for not foreseeing a Westminster election taking place.

Salmond believes the timing of the election, in which he and 20 of his party colleagues lost their seats, "was completely wrong" from an SNP perspective.

The ex-SNP leader made the comments in an interview with Holyrood magazine.

Salmond said: "The reason I was so keen not to have the election was that I knew the timing, from an SNP point of view, was completely wrong.

"That's nobody's fault, particularly because I don't think Nicola could be at all expected to anticipate that Theresa May was going to turn into an election kamikaze pilot.

"There's absolutely nothing in Theresa May's nature that could have suggested she was going to steer her airplane into the sea for no apparent reason, apart from having had some vision in the Welsh hillside. "

He added: "Nicola cannot be blamed for not seeing that coming. None of us did. It meant that the timing for us was wrong.

"Nicola would never have pulled the trigger on the second referendum if it had been clear that there was an election to come, it was done on the basis that the election would be in two or three years' time, which was the reasonable expectation that everybody had."