Miliband could be left with just two MPs in Scotland

ED Miliband left the door open to a post-election deal with the SNP yesterday as a new poll suggested Labour could be reduced to just two MPs in Scotland.

The Labour leader insisted his party could still win outright, pleading with people not to ‘blow the whistle on the match before the game is over’.

However he has not ruled out a vote-by-vote arrangement with the Nationalists.

On a visit to Scotland he claimed there was an ‘unholy alliance’ between the Conservatives and the SNP to keep David Cameron in Number Ten.

He added that every seat Labour lost to the SNP would increase the chances of a second term for the Tories.

Labour’s panic was increased yesterday by an ICM poll for the Guardian.

It showed Nicola Sturgeon’s party way ahead, with 43 per cent of the vote, with Labour languishing on 27 per cent, the Conservatives on 14 per cent and the Liberal Democrats on six per cent.

On a uniform swing, the figures would see the SNP jump from just six of Scotland’s 59 seats in 2010 to 43 in May.

Labour would lose 29 of the 41 seats

‘He has lost the plot entirely’

won in 2010, making it all but impossible for the party to win a majority. But a detailed analysis of the poll numbers suggests Labour’s position could be even worse.

Leading psephologist Professor John Curtice, of Strathclyde University, said the SNP have advanced by a staggering 31 per cent in Labour seats.

He concluded Labour could be wiped out in all but two seats.

If so, the SNP would be certain of holding the balance of power at Westminster. ‘There is nothing ... to suggest that the rise of the SNP is not extending to supposedly safe Labour heartlands – if anything, the opposite is the case,’ said Professor Curtice.

Mr Miliband appeared angered by Alex Salmond positioning himself as kingmaker in West- minster. ‘It’s a combination of bluster and bluff,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you who’s going to be writing a Labour budget, me and Ed Balls. It’s not going to be Alex Salmond – not in a million years.’

He had previously ruled out a coalition with the SNP, but stopped short of ruling out the vote-by-vote arrangement proposed by the SNP. ‘How other parties decide to vote on the basis of a Labour Queen’s Speech is up to them,’ he said.

SNP deputy leader Stewart Hosie said Mr Miliband would be ‘very, very foolish’ to rule out a post-election agreement, which would prevent the Conservatives from gaining power.

On the claim of an unholy alliance between the Tories and the SNP, he said: ‘I think Miliband has lost the plot entirely.’