The battle for Scotland

Ed Miliband heads to Scotland on Friday evening to try and salvage the party’s election campaign, amid fears that the party is facing a “wipeout” at the hands of the SNP.

The Labour leader will warn that nationalism “never built a school, never lifted people out of poverty”.

Mr Miliband will also evoke the names of Scottish Labour Party founder Keir Hardie and the architects of devolution, John Smith and Donald Dewar.

Miliband rally speech tonight in Glasgow will call on Scots to unite behind Labour to kick the Tories out of No 10

— alex thomson (@alextomo) May 1, 2015

Speaking before heading to Scotland, Mr Miliband said: “Remember our great leaders, from Keir Hardie to Jennie Lee, John Smith to Donald Dewar. What would they want today?

“We could be on the verge of electing a Labour government. They would want to be part of it.”

Nicola Sturgeon will call on Scottish voters to “make their voices heard at Westminster” saying the country has an “unrivalled opportunity”.

Perhaps ironically, the SNP leader invoked the spirit of unity, saying: “By uniting as a country – north, south, east and west – to elect a big group of SNP MPs, Scotland gains the decisive position at Westminster needed to ensure that the interests of people across Scotland are not ignored in the way they too often have been in the past.”

On last night’s Question Time debates Mr Miliband ruled out a deal with the SNP and Ms Sturgeon, facing questions from an audience at BBC Scotland, said Scotland would never forgive him if he allowed the Conservatives to stay in government.