Ed Miliband struggles to woo Scots

Labour leader Ed Miliband, who faces major losses in Scotland in May's general election, has accused the Scottish National Party (SNP) of "an unholy alliance" with the Conservatives to stop Labour taking power.

Promising Scots real change if Labour wins, Miliband, in a speech in a one-time Labour heartland in Scotland, urged voters to put aside their thoughts about Scottish independence.

“It’s incredibly important that people see that the referendum was last year. The election is this year,” he said.

However, he faces major hurdles, as voters in Scotland see a vote for the SNP as a way of ensuring that Labour follows traditional Labour policies if elected, while talk of the influence that the SNP could wield is damaging his ability to woo voters in England.

Loosely, the most recent poll can be interpreted as showing that the SNP, with 43 per cent support, has held on to nearly all of those who voted for independence. (The party now has more than 100,000 card-carrying members.)

Predictably, however, the No camp is split. Labour’s support has haemorrhaged, leaving it on just 27 points; the Conservatives are on 14 points; the Liberal Democrats are on six points; and the UK Independence Party is on seven points.

By one analysis, the SNP could win 43 Westminster seats in May, up from six today. Labour’s numbers would collapse from 41 to just 12, while the Liberal Democrats would be left with just three MPs in Scotland. The Conservatives would hold on to their one MP.

However, leading political analyst Prof John Curtice said the results could be even worse for Labour, as a number of its traditional heartlands – most notably, Glasgow and West Dumbartonshire – were among those areas that recorded the highest support for independence in last September’s referendum.

Labour is seething about former SNP leader Alex Salmond’s declaration on Sunday that his party would have controlling power over a minority Labour government’s budgets after the general election.

“If you hold the balance, then you hold the power,” Salmond said.

Labour budget

Questioned in Glasgow, Miliband said: “I tell you who’s going to be writing a Labour budget. It’s me and [Labour’s shadow chancellor]

Ed Balls

. And it’s not going to be

Alex Salmond

. Not in a million years.”

Meanwhile, talking about his negotiating stance with the SNP if Labour fails to form a majority government, Miliband inidcated that he would not be offer inducements to the SNP so as buy its support for key votes in the House of Commons.

“What other parties choose to do on a budget vote is up to them. It’s up to other parties to decide how they would vote on a Labour queen’s speech,” said Miliband, referring to the annual occasion when British governments announce their programme for the coming year.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are gleeful about Salmond’s intervention on Sunday, believing that it plays badly with English voters in key Conservative/Labour marginal constituencies in the midlands, who resent the idea that Scots could win concessions in return for their votes.