ALEX Salmond has come under multiple attack from peers, accusing him of menacing and anti-English behaviour during the referendum campaign.

During a Lords debate on devolution, former Scottish Secretary Baroness Liddell described the referendum campaign as the "worst election I have ever seen"; divisive, aggressive, thoroughly unpleasant, which did not represent the good people of Scotland.

"And, yes," added the Labour peer, "in some places there was an anti-English feeling and Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon were the joint architects of that."

Lord Birt, the Crossbencher, who is a former Director General of the BBC, told peers that while many in the Yes camp had behaved with propriety and conviction, others "acted dishonestly and with menace"; no better example of this, he claimed, was the First Minister's "singling out" of the BBC's Political Editor Nick Robinson.

"To distract from his ­difficulties - as usual playing the man and not the ball - the First Minister orchestrated an argy-bargy with Nick Robinson...a correspondent universally respected for his insight, independence and integrity."

In response, an SNP spokesman said: "Scotland's referendum campaign has been almost universally acknowledged as the most vibrant flowering of democracy seen in modern times; something that obviously doesn't sit well with this motley collection of unelected Lords."