THE SNP has accused Alistair Darling of "getting his instructions" from the Tories after it emerged the former Labour chancellor and head of the pro-UK Better Together campaign is to appear at the Scottish Conservative conference this week.
Mr Darling will attend the gathering in Stirling to launch a new Better Together group, called Forces Together, to rally support from those who have served in the military.
But the unprecedented move – he is believed to be the first Labour MP to attend a Scots Tory conference –drew a scathing response from the SNP.
Nationalist MSP Annabelle Ewing said: "This is bad news for the No campaign. Many Labour voters will be appalled at the prospect of Alistair Darling going to the Tory conference to get his instructions.
"The reality is the No campaign is led by the Tory Government at Westminster, which the people of Scotland didn't vote for, and is inflicting cruel cuts on working families and vulnerable people. In attending the Tory conference, Mr Darling is proving the No campaign prefers bad Government from Westminster to good government with independence."
The Tory conference will hear keynote speeches from Prime Minister David Cameron as well as Scots leader Ruth Davidson.
Ms Davidson yesterday hit back at criticism of her leadership, saying "navel gazing" about her performances at Holyrood was a distraction from rebuilding the party.
Mr Cameron said he would use his speech to argue the UK needs to "pull together" in a global economic race.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article