SHADOW Chancellor Ed Balls went on the stump in the Cowdenbeath by-election and urged Alex Salmond to abandon his demand for a TV debate with "English Tory" David Cameron.
Mr Balls urged the First Minister to sit down with Better Together campaign chief Alistair Darling and himself to discuss the SNP's plans for Scotland's future, particularly over currency.
Speaking in Lochgelly yesterday, Mr Balls said: "It seems to me that Alex Salmond is very unhappy with the prospect of debating with Alistair Darling and is therefore trying to claim an English Tory should come up and lead the campaign. That's not going to happen in anybody's world.
"If Alex Salmond had the courage of his convictions, he would sit down and talk to me and Alistair about whether he could keep the pound, and be straight with the Scottish people."
SNP Candidate Natalie McGarry was joined outside her former primary St John's School in the constituency by Sports Minister Shona Robison to highlight what the SNP was doing to improve Fife children's health. She said the party has said it will bring in free school meals for primaries one to three, saving at least £330 for every eligible child.
Ms McGarry said: "The early years of children's lives are so important when it comes to setting the healthy habits that can last a lifetime."
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said the SNP's record of failure in Fife shows why Cowdenbeath needs a LibDem to stand up for the area.
Scottish Conservative candidate Dave Dempsey said Labour and SNP were obsessed with each other. He said: "They've spent more time obsessing about each other and trying to land political punches than actually giving the voters what they want."
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