Tom Gordon

DAVID Cameron has stepped up his call for Labour to rule out a power-sharing deal with the SNP after the general election.

As Ed Miliband conspicuously failed to do so at the Scottish Labour conference yesterday - despite intense overnight speculation that he would - the Prime Minister said a Lab-SNP arrangement would be the "worst outcome" of May's poll.

He said: "You could end up with an alliance between the people who want to bankrupt Britain and the people who want to break up Britain.

"Even today, Ed Miliband will not rule out a deal or backing from the SNP.

"If he cares about this country, he should do so."

Former Conservative Party chair Lord Baker yesterday called for a Tory-Labour "grand coalition" to keep the SNP out of power.

The former education secretary said an Lab-SNP deal would be a "nightmare" and "stretch the constitution of our country to breaking point".

He said a deal was unthinkable at present, but pointed out that in Germany Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats govern with the Social Democrats.

"What is at risk is the continuing unity of the United Kingdom," he said.

"In order to preserve that unity another way should be found.

"This could be a joint government of the Labour and Conservative parties: quite unthinkable at the moment, and at this time likely to be rejected by both of them - but this is what has happened in Germany."

However the idea was rapidly shot down by Labour, with Scottish leader Jim Murphy ruling it out as "ludicrous".