Better Together will be “outspent” in the independence campaign but only because taxpayers’ money is being used to back a Yes vote, Alistair Darling has claimed.
The former Labour Chancellor and No Campaign leader made the claim during an event with Holyrood journalists on Monday, where he said he found the funding difference “irritating”.
It came the day after Labour shadow Scottish secretary Margaret Curran unveiled figures showing the Scottish Government spent more than £84,000 in just two weeks on an advertising campaign for its white paper on independence.
Mr Darling called the publicly funded document an SNP “manifesto”.
He said: “We are going to get outspent on this. There will be no doubt about that. What I find irritating is it is such an uneven contest where they can use the power of government and the financial power of government alongside party stuff.”
A poll at the weekend showed significant movement towards a Yes vote but another survey, published today, suggests backing for independence has dropped by a point.
Mr Darling said he expected public opinion to ebb and flow in the run-up to September.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Scotland’s Future is the most comprehensive and detailed blueprint of its kind ever published, not just for Scotland, but for any prospective independent country and has met with such a huge level of demand, which is testament to the appetite for information that exists around the referendum debate.
“It is only right that there should be public information provided to ensure that as many people as possible are able to have access to the arguments and make an informed decision on 18 September.”
SNP MSP Kenneth Gibson said: “As the man who promised to inflict spending cuts that were ‘deeper and tougher’ than those seen under Margaret Thatcher and as someone who is working hand in glove with the Tories in this campaign Alistair Darling is the very last person who should be making comparisons to the 1980s.”