ALEX Salmond tackled the currency issue head on in the second televised debate with Alistair Darling, before seeking to pin his opponent on issues such as oil, jobs, poverty and health.

The Better Together leader was kept largely on the back foot before an audience at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow last night when a balanced audience picked by an external polling company seemed to warm more to the First Minister, who employed arguments about Trident towards the end of the exchanges.

Plan B featured again, the question of an alternative to a sterling zone currency union which had dominated the first televised debate and helped Mr Darling come out on top.

But this time Mr Salmond raised it first and found a way to turn it round, demanding to know what Mr Darling's preference for a currency would be in the event of Scotland voting yes.

Mr Salmond also slipped in a final, tongue-in-cheek note implying the Yes side was heading for victory when he signalled his willingness to invite the former Labour Chancellor onto his negotiating team to deal with Whitehall on the terms of independence.

The BBC televised debate saw some towsy exchanges with the contenders talking across each other, but it was Mr Salmond who appeared to come out on top at the second time of asking after a subdued performance in the first STV contest.

The First Minister opened by speaking of Scotland being at a crossroads under the eyes of the world, citing 1979's devolution referendum that led to the creation of the Scottish Parliament, and now a fresh chance.

He said: "We couldn't stop the bedroom tax, we can't stop illegal wars, we can't stop the poor and disabled bearing the brunt of welfare cuts, we can't stop the spread of food banks in this prosperous country, we can't stop countless billions being wasted on a new generation of weapons of mass destruction.

"Now we have the opportunity to change all of that."

Mr Darling countered: "My first priority is to build a fairer and better society. His first priority is to create a separate state no matter what the risks and what the cost."

At the first debate Mr Salmond was under the cosh on currency. This time he seized on the issue, came round from the lectern and spoke out to the audience, a tactic he was to employ again.

He employed the argument that he was seeking a mandate in the referendum for his right to negotiate a sterling union. "That mandate is crucial, and that is what I want people to support, because I believe if they support it and send me into negotiations as First Minister then that will be the outcome."

Mr Darling said both sides would have to agree to a currency union: "You are taking a huge risk if you think it is just all going to fall into place.

"I think the currency union would be bad for Scotland because our budget would have to be approved not by us, but what would then be a foreign country. It wouldn't be best for the rest of the country either."

He also attacked estimates of oil revenues but Mr Salmond hit back: "The No campaign, the Tory party, the Labour party, are the only people in the world who argue that the possession of substantial amounts of oil and gas are somehow a curse as opposed to an asset for a country."

He added: "North Sea oil and gas is about 15 per cent of Scotland's overall economy. It is about 20 per cent of Norway's overall economy, and I haven't seen it doing Norway much harm. The reality is North Sea oil and gas will be with us way beyond 2050."

Mr Salmond said no chancellor would let Scotland away with its share of the debt liabilities and therefore a currency union would be agreed.

Mr Darling countered: "If your first message in the world is here we are, here is Scotland, and by the way we've just defaulted on our debt, what do you think that would do to people who are lending us money in the future?"

The First Minister then turned the question round on his opponent. If Scotland did vote Yes would Mr Darling then back a sterling union if that was in the best interests of Scotland? By then the exchanges were getting heated and the audience noisier.

There were then clashes on the NHS, with Mr Darling accusing the Yes side of scaremongering while Mr Salmond insisted cutbacks in spending south of the Border could hurt the health service in Scotland if the referendum resulted in a No vote.

He stated: "Under devolution we can't be forced to privatise the health service because we've got operational control of it, but we don't have financial control of it, and that is a serious problem."

Mr Darling said: "Because of the strength and security of the United Kingdom, public spending is £1,200 more per head than it is in the rest of the United Kingdom and that is the way to guarantee spending on the National Health Service."

Issues such as Trident and defence jobs were to follow, with the First Minister milking the support on the broad issue but Mr Darling and members of the audience pursuing him on the related issue of jobs.

The there was a sting in the tail. Alex Salmond finished with a typical rhetorical flourish, suggesting that if he won a Yes vote he would invite Alistair Darling onto the "Team Scotland" negotiation group who will have to face Whitehall.

There was no answer to that.