Salmond attacks Labour on Inverclyde campaign trail

The Scottish National Party accused Labour of "cosying up to the Tories" as the campaign for the Inverclyde by-election heated up today.

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said Labour were in "a cosy coalition" with the Tories on Inverclyde Council, while SNP Westminster chief whip Stewart Hosie accused Labour leader Ed Miliband of being influenced by Margaret Thatcher.

Labour hit back that the SNP "had voted with the Tories on two out of three votes" in the last Scottish Parliament, and criticised local SNP councillors for refusing to join the all-party "rainbow coalition" on Inverclyde Council.

The council administration, currently led by Labour's by-election candidate Iain McKenzie, comprises councillors from every other party and an independent.

Mr Salmond addressed 200 party delegates in Greenock today at the SNP's first national assembly since its landslide victory in the Scottish elections last month, before joining SNP by-election candidate Anne McLaughlin, a former MSP, on the campaign trail.

He said: "While her Labour opponent is in a cosy coalition with the Tories in Inverclyde Council and Labour's leader has to order his activists onto the street, Anne McLaughlin and the SNP are on the side of people in Inverclyde, listening to what people want and speaking out against Tory cuts to the Coastguard."

Mr Miliband attended a weekly group meeting of Labour's 37 MSPs in Greenock yesterday. A Labour spokesman denied he had to order activists out to campaign.

Inverclyde MSP Duncan McNeil, whose notional lead of 4,517 slumped to 511 votes in the Holyrood elections last month, also accused the SNP of "a massive blunder" by linking its campaign to Tory cuts.

He said: "Only three months ago they imposed the biggest job-destroying cuts we have seen for a generation on Inverclyde.

"Mr Salmond personally ordered a whopping 60 per cent cut to the regeneration budget for our area - and the SNP candidate actually voted to push it through.

"Given that both of them are on a trip to Greenock today, I am demanding they apologise for the hit they have caused to our area."

Mr Hosie, also in Greenock today, seized on unconfirmed reports that Mr Miliband's aides are studying the campaign of former Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a bid to get him elected.

He said: "The SNP is fighting for jobs and opportunities for Scotland and Inverclyde's young people whilst Labour is cosying up to the Tories.

"Voters in Inverclyde know the damage Thatcher's plans did to this area as industry shut down and unemployment rose."

A Labour spokesman called Mr Hosie's intervention a "silly political attack".

He added: "The SNP might have been marginally more effective if the SNP hadn't voted with the Tories on two out of three votes in the last parliament, and if Alex Salmond hadn't let slip over a long lunch that he felt Scots 'didn't mind' Margaret Thatcher's economic policies."

The by-election was sparked by the death of David Cairns MP, who held the seat for Labour with a majority of 14,416, on May 9.

Following today's national assembly the SNP said that its membership has risen to a 40 year high, and it has appointed veteran Renfrewshire MSP Derek Mackay as its new business convener.