Tory grandee Annabel Goldie has accused Alex Salmond of being hypocritical towards toward her party.
The former Scottish Conservative leader said the SNP were out to demonise the party in its attempt to win referendum votes despite relying heavily on its support during its minority administration between 2007 and 2011.
Policies such as 1,000 extra police officers were only made possible because of Tory support because Mr Salmond needed the party’s support to get its budgets passed in the Scottish Parliament, she said.
Baroness Goldie said: “When his political fate depended on us, he didn’t think twice before seeking and taking our support.
“It is quite extraordinary that he’s now doing a complete volte-face and now proclaims that the Tories are the worst things on the earth.
“To hear him now dismissing the Conservatives as the pariah of politics, as the name that dare not be spoken, is to me just utterly incredible and utterly hypocritical.
“The bottom line is that when Alex Salmond needed the Tories he couldn’t get enough of our help.”
SNP MSP Linda Fabiani said: “The problem for the No campaign is that nobody in Scotland will be taken in by these desperate attempts to distract attention from the unpopular alliance between the Tories and the Labour leadership – which goes some way to explaining why more and more Labour voters are switching from No to Yes.
“It’s no wonder that Annabel Goldie is standing up for Alistair Darling after he’s acted as the human shield for the Tories throughout the referendum campaign – shamefully defending the disastrous policies which are hitting some of our most vulnerable people hardest and pushing 100,000 more children in Scotland into poverty.”