Tories are playing dangerous gaming bigging up SNP, former Scottish Secretary warns

Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond in Gordon, the seat Salmond hopes to take at May’s election for the SNP

Lord Forsyth has accused David Cameron of having ‘shattered’ the pro-UK alliance in Scotland.

The senior Tory peer has used an interview in The Guardian to warn that the Conservatives tactic of emphasising SNP support as a way of damaging Labour in Scotland is a “short term and dangerous game” that threatens the future of the UK.

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean accused Mr Cameron of having “shattered” the pro-UK alliance in Scotland and stirring up English nationalism after the Scottish independence referendum last year.

He has also said the Conservatives were partly responsible for the rise of the SNP after helping to prop up Alex Salmond’s minority government from 2007 to 2011, a move that gave Tory voters “permission” to support the SNP to keep out Labour.