Labour leader Ed Miliband, who is battling the Scottish National Party to hold onto dozens of House of Commons seats, has urged Scottish voters to back Labour in May's general election or else risk "a decade of Tory misrule".
"Every one less Labour MP makes it more likely the Tories will be the largest party. If you want to see the end of the Tory government, the only way to make it happen is to vote Labour on May 7th," Mr Miliband told Scottish Labour's conference in Edinburgh this morning.
“The biggest risk of Scotland getting the government it didn’t vote for is to believe you can get a Labour government while voting for somebody else. The way to get rid of the Tories and get a Labour government is to vote Labour,” he said.
A succession of opinion polls in recent weeks have reported that Labour could lose nearly all of their Commons seats - including facing a near wipe-out in Glasgow, the party’s heartland - in May because of the rise of SNP support.
Labour currently holds 41 of Scotland’s 57 seats. However, Mr Miliband’s chances of reaching No 10 Downing Street will be sharply weakened, if not killed off entirely, if the polls are even remotely accurate.
The Scottish National Party is telling voters that Scotland’s hand at Westminster will be at its strongest if it holds most of the seats, since it will be able to bargain for concessions from a Labour minority government.
Significantly, the SNP has already signalled that it will abandon its demand that the Trident nuclear missile force at Faslane is removed, along with past calls that the UK should not build new missiles.
In power, Mr Miliband said Labour would “not tolerate” a country “of poverty pay” where hard work is not rewarded, or “Victorian working conditions” that see workers exploited by zero-hours contracts.
Pledging to scrap the House of Lords and to replace it with an elected Senate, Mr Miliband said: “It is time to do what should have been done a long time ago and bring democratic voice across our Parliament.”
Meanwhile, Mr Miliband sought to exploit Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to refuse to take part in a head-to-head TV debate with him during the general election campaign.
"This is what David Cameron used to say about TV election debates. That they were essential to our democracy. That every country apart from Mongolia had them. That he wasn't going to have any feeble excuses to get out of debates."
Mr Cameron has repeatedly argued that British voters must compare his ability to run the United Kingdom, compared with Mr Miliband’s. “Yet, when it comes to a debate between him and me, he’s running scared,” said the Labour leader.
“You can refuse to face the public, but you can’t deny your record.You can try to chicken out of the debates, but don’t ever again claim that you provide strong leadership,” he said.
The Conservatives believe the 2010 TV debates cost them the election, though the belief is widely questioned, while they are equally convinced that Mr Cameron would risk much by debating with Mr Miliband for little possible gain.
