Alex Salmond promises SNP will use leverage to win sacrifices from Labour
Salmond outlines demands of Labour in return for partnering in coalition
Former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond has piled pressure on UK opposition leader Ed Miliband by pledging to force any minority Labour government to cut "vote-by-vote" deals in return for the support of Salmond's Scottish National Party (SNP).
On the eve of a pre-election visit by Miliband, the Labour leader, to Scotland, where polls suggest the SNP is heading for a landslide win in May's general election, Salmond declared on Sunday that he expected the SNP to "hold the power" in a hung parliament.
"If you hold the balance, then you hold the power," Salmond told the BBC's as opinion polls suggest the SNP could capture as many as 56 of Scotland's 59 seats in the British parliament. This would make the Scottish nationalists Westminster's third-largest party.
The intervention by Salmond prompted the Conservative Party of Prime Minister David Cameron to release an animated campaign video showing the former SNP leader playing a pipe while Miliband dances. The doom-laden voiceover claims Miliband could only secure power through a deal with the SNP and that Salmond would be able to "call the tune".
Tory defence minister Anna Soubry told Salmond his plans were "terrifying" and called it a "backdoor way of breaking up the United Kingdom".
Soubry said: "The thought that we are in a position whereby you could be actually controlling in the way you have described this United Kingdom, fills me with absolute horror.
"The audacity is astonishing: there was a wonderful debate in Scotland [last year], you lost it. We're a United Kingdom - that's what the people of Scotland wanted."
Miliband had hoped to draw a line under the Tory attacks last week by ruling out a coalition with the SNP if Labour was able to form a government in a hung parliament after the election.
But he declined to rule out a less formal "confidence-and-supply" arrangement in which the SNP would support Labour in a vote of no confidence and on the budget (supply) in return for concessions.
Salmond dismissed Miliband's intervention as he said the SNP had only ever talked of pressing for an informal deal with a Labour-led government in a hung parliament.
"I think it's more likely to have a vote-by-vote arrangement," Salmond said.
In an illustration of how the SNP would seek to flex its muscles in a hung parliament, in which Labour led a minority government, Salmond spoke of amending an Ed Balls budget to appeal to MPs from Scotland and the north of England.
"So I propose an amendment to [that] budget," he said. "Let's say instead of this very, very slow train coming up from London, I think we should start it from Edinburgh/Glasgow to Newcastle and I put that down as a budget amendment.
"It would have substantial support from the north of England and other parties and would carry the House of Commons. What does Mr Balls do then?"
