SNP: on the warpath

The Labour-led Scottish executive has been accused of "throwing cash around like confetti" ahead of May's parliamentary elections.

Fiona Hyslop, the SNP's shadow parliament minister, charged Labour and their Liberal Democrat coalition partners of orchestrating a "blizzard of executive spending announcements" just weeks before the Scottish elections.

Hyslop claimed that 15 spending announcements totalling £3.67 billion had been made in the last month alone.

Since the start of the year the total for administration spending announcements was £5.68 billion, she added.

Hyslop said she was "astonished" at a "desperate attempt to buy the election".

"We are used to this Lib-Lab coalition cynically abusing their position, but to spend £3.6 billion in just 12 days is quite astonishing. It smacks of little more than a desperate attempt to buy the election," she said.

"Many of the announcements they have made are worthy enough in their own right, while some are the old Labour trick of announcing the same money more than once.

"What we have to ask, however, is why we are suddenly faced with a blizzard of cash pledges just 50 days before the election.

"They are throwing public money around like confetti. It is the oldest political trick in the book and I sincerely doubt the electorate will be fooled."