SNP, Tories and Murdoch press keen to derail Labour – Miliband

The Scottish National Party is part of an axis with the Conservatives and Rupert Murdoch to keep Labour out of power, leading Labour figures declared last night as it rounded on the biggest threat to it winning power.

"Don't gamble wth the SNP when you can guarantee change with Labour," Labour leader Ed Miliband told a Glasgow rally, "the tragedy may be that the SNP could let in the Conservatives.

Despite criticism of his refusal to entertain talk of coalitions, or pacts with the Scottish nationalists, Miliband once again insisted: “I want to be clear tonight, no deal, no pacts.

“Let us not have lectures from the SNP about fighting the Tories, we fought the Tories all our lives,” said Miliband, who said anti-English, or anti-Scottish rhetoric damages first the interests of working people.

Seizing on the decision of the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid, The Sun to back the Conservatives in England, but the SNP in Scotland, Labour charged that Murdoch is working hand-in-glove with the Conservatives to defeat Labour.

If the Conservatives win, said Scottish Labour's deputy leader, Kezia Dugdale, Rupert Murdoch "will be buying pink champagne, Alex Salmond will be pouring it and David Cameron will be drinking it".

Scottish Labour leader, Jim Murphy, speaking to a party rally in Glasgow, said Labour should look back with pride on its record in office since 1997, listing a litany of social change.

The SNP are consumed with plans for a second independence referendum, he warned, even though the “last eight years in Scotland have been consumed by constitutional debate”.

Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne said voters now face "a choice between the "chaos of a weak Miliband relying vote by vote on SNP life support" and a "strong, stable" Cameron majority government".

The Conservatives are convinced that the strategy of painting the SNP as wreckers is frightening English voters, but it is being done at a considerable cost in terms of relations with Scots.

In Leeds on Thursday, Miliband sought to reconcile the impossible, by saying that he would not “barter away” Labour’s plans in a deal with the SNP, or anyone else, but, equally, seemed also to rule out pacts of any kind.

Labour's election chief, Douglas Alexander, who is in danger of losing his own seat in Scotland, insisted that the SNP is not as powerful as it had claimed to be in recent days. UK Independence Party leader, Nigel Farage said Labour will suffer in England if it manages to form a minority adminstration, but one that has to depend on the SNP for votes.

Saying that Ukip’s growth is coming from former Labour voters, Farage warned that Miliband “simply cannot become PM” without committing a lie that will leave future Labour support in the Midlands and the North of England vulnerable.