The Labour Party must unite behind Gordon Brown and stand "shoulder to shoulder" with him to take the fight to the SNP in Scotland, delegates heard today.
Iain Gray, leader of the party in Scotland, said it was time "to face outwards not in" and Labour was the only "force for fairness" in Scottish politics.
Mr Gray, in his first keynote speech since he was elected party leader at Holyrood earlier th
is month, launched a scathing attack on the SNP and First Minister Alex Salmond.
He said the nationalists were prepared to ditch every manifesto promise to students, the elderly and parents and had just delivered on two tax cuts – "stripping over half a billion pounds out of the Scottish budget".
And he claimed the SNP was "working actively" to see David Cameron become the next Prime Minister, just as they had let the Tories take power under Margaret Thatcher in 1979.
Without the action of Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, HBOS, which has its Scottish headquarters in Edinburgh, would probably have disappeared, he said.
Mr Gray, a former teacher, said that Labour had been out of power in Scotland for more than a year: "I can tell you it still hurts.
"It hurts not for personal pride, not because we miss the trappings of power. It hurts because we have lost the chance to shape our country's future.
"It hurts because we have to watch an SNP administration cutting services, failing to invest in our prosperity, and using the Scottish Parliament we worked so hard for – not as the powerful instrument of social progress it is, but as a platform for separatist posturing.
"The nationalists are using that parliament to let Scotland down, when we know we could use it to raise Scotland up."
He said during his election the message he took to party members, trade unionists and Labour politicians was that to win back power in Scotland Labour had to "rediscover our conviction, reassert our self-belief and unite around our shared values and common purpose.
"Now is the time to face outwards not in, to speak clearly about the concerns and aspirations of those we serve.
"To hold our nerve and hold our focus on the cost of living, access to housing, jobs, training, skills, schools and hospitals.
"Now is the time to unite behind our Prime Minister Gordon Brown and fight shoulder to shoulder and side by side with him for the fairer future we know we can have.
"When times are difficult people and parties let their true colours show."
Mr Gray also said that in Glenrothes, where Labour faces a tough by-election battle, the SNP candidate had raised homecare charges when a council leader from £4 per week to £11 per hour. He would do "everything in my power" to ensure a Labour victory there.
On HBOS, he said: "Thousands of jobs are threatened, and we will do everything we can, to minimise that impact.
"I am leaving directly after this speech to attend an emergency meeting, called at Labour's suggestion, to consider what should be done.
"But without the action already taken by Gordon Brown and Alistair
Darling, HBOS would probably have disappeared last Thursday and taken all the jobs and all the savings and all the mortgages with it.
"No-one except Alex Salmond believes that HBOS would have been saved by Scottish independence."
The full article contains 571 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
