Scottish Labour has stepped up its attacks on the SNP by using a new election broadcast to accuse leader Nicola Sturgeon of "playing a broken record" with demands for another independence referendum.
With just a few days of General Election campaigning left, the party has challenged the First Minister's record in government and claimed she offers "the same old answer for everything" - another vote on independence.
The broadcast claims that areas such as health and education have suffered as a result of a focus on constitutional politics.
It comes as the SNP leader warned that votes for Labour "risk letting Tory MPs in by the back door".
Labour leader Kezia Dugdale said Ms Sturgeon's administration at Holyrood had presided over reductions in teachers and cuts to local government funding.
She said the Scottish Government has also failed to tackle A&E waiting times and had presided over a real-terms pay cut for nurses.
Ms Dugdale said: "On Thursday, people can send Nicola Sturgeon a message that she should focus on the day job, rather than forcing another independence referendum that people in Scotland don't want.
"After ten years of the SNP campaigning for independence, Scotland's schools and hospitals have suffered.
"Nicola Sturgeon's answer is another referendum - she is playing a broken record."
Ms Dugdale also insisted that, contrary to the message the election is a two-horse race in Scotland between the SNP and the Conservatives, Labour is best-placed to beat the nationalists "in the majority of seats across Scotland".
These include Edinburgh South, East Lothian, Lanark and Hamilton East, Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill, Midlothian, and Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, the Labour leader said.
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel