The disclosure seems to have upset Mr Forsyth's political nous. What else can explain his ending the rally with David Steel's ill-judged declaration: "Go back to your constituencies and prepare for Government." Made to a party conference in 1981, the words haunted the Liberal leader for years. Unless Mr Forsyth succeeds in defying electoral gravity on Thursday - he has a notional majority of just 236 - he will suffer similar ridicule.The three ministers were led individually to the rostrum at George Watson's College in Edinburgh by a piper. On stage they were overshadowed by a blue-handled claymore plunged into a synthetic boulder.This confusing piece of symbolism, Arthurian with a kilt, is one of the Scottish party's election props. The forging of the claymore was shown in a Tory election broadcast, mixing highland heritage with a bright future for Scotland through the swordsmith's high-tech children.The ministers' theme was that Labour would "surrender" to federalism in the European Union while impoverishing Scotland through a tax-raising parliament in Edinburgh.Mr Forsyth said he had looked into the possibility of a devolved parliament but could find no answer either to the West Lothian question or how to ensure Scotland continued to benefit from extra public spending.Malcolm Rifkind, the Foreign Secretary, said the election would be "a referendum on Britain's future". For the first time in its history the Tory party had to appeal to unionists in all parties to join in preserving the best political union the world had ever seen. Mr Rifkind's own political future could be wrecked by a swing to Labour in Edinburgh Pentlands of 4.5 per cent.Ian Lang, President of the Board of Trade, said a Scottish parliament would be a "rupture in the Union which could never be repaired and would lead inexorably to both the political and economic belittling of Scotland".He said Scotland's great days were not those of "your wee bit hill and glen" with cattle getting lost in the bog, but the post-Union intellectual flowering of the Enlightenment and the Empire-building achievements of Scots explorers, missionaries and engineers."I don't want to see the Saltire ripped out of the flag of the Union," said Mr Lang, whose own shaky grip on Galloway and Upper Nithsdale could be dislodged by a swing to the SNP of only 2.8 per cent..
Old film buffs may find a comforting similarity with the final message from New Labour in the party's final election campaign broadcast tonight which features an angel. A winged taxi-driver, played by screen star Peter Postlethwaite, shows a father, Tom, and his daughter, Becky, how bad life could be under a fifth Conservative Government, where it never stops raining, and they have to wait six hours for treatment in a hospital accident and emergency unit. The idea of the angel may well have been borrowed from the 1946 Hollywood movie, It's a Wonderful Life, a "weepy" often repeated at Christmas, in which James Stewart, playing a suicidal drunk, is shown by an angel called Clarence what life could be like without him.Both films have a happy ending, with the Labour PEB offering voters the chance to avoid the dire future coming to pass. When it screened in a preview last night, it was met by titters from hard-hearted political correspondents.It is likely to be criticised as a negative end to a negative campaign, and for failing to offer any real glimpse of what life would be like under Labour, except that the sun is shining.Peter Mandelson, Labour's campaign chief, defended the film and denied it carried a negative message."We thought we would end it (the campaign) on a charming note with our own divine messenger or guardian angel ... Angels are switchers."Mr Postlethwaite, who was the band leader in the hit film Brassed Off, and also played a murdering sergeant in the TV series Sharpe, gave his services free of charge.The Liberal Democrat leader, Paddy Ashdown, last night in contrast to Labour's angel ended his party's final election broadcast by reinforcing the Liberal Democrat manifesto commitments to increase taxes to pay for higher spending on education, a referendum on Europe, and a promise of more nurses and doctors in the NHS.Liberal Democrat leaders claim they are winning over voters with their more positive campaign. There are rumblings in the Labour camp about the "safety first" nature of Labour's campaign, although those will be silenced if Labour win by a landslide.. Tony Blair yesterday flew from London to Derby in a helicopter owned by the proprietor of Harrods, Mohamed Al Fayed, the man at the heart of the "cash for questions" allegations.
Three weeks ago, the Labour leader threw his campaign schedule into chaos to avoid a potentially embarrassing meeting with Mr Fayed by refraining from boarding his campaign helicopter at Battersea Heliport in south London until the Harrods supremo had landed in his and been whisked away. Mr Blair's delay that day came when his press secretary, Alastair Campbell, spotted two photographers on the tarmac. They had learned that Mr Fayed's aircraft was due to land from his estate in Boxted, Surrey, just as Mr Blair was due to board his Cab Air Squirrel bound for a meeting with children at a school in Redditch, Hereford and Worcester.A senior Labour source said at the time: "Their eyes lit up and we realised that a meeting could have been misconstrued".However, yesterday Mr Blair was flying high in a Fayed-owned machine. The Labour leader and his wife Cherie flew from Battersea Heliport to Derby on another leg of his campaign trail.A Labour source said yesterday that a leasing company, Jet Air, hired the machines which were owned by other people, and one belonged to Harrods. The source insisted that Mr Blair had been unaware of who owned the helicopter and said that it had not been not been decorated in the Harrods green and gold livery.. The Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Heseltine, and Labour's deputy leader, John Prescott, traded verbal blows yesterday in a live television debate between the deputy leaders of all three main political parties. The sparks started to fly after Mr Heseltine levelled a direct accusation against Mr Prescott of "lying" about Tory proposals on retirement pensions. The debate - the only one of its kind throughout the whole election campaign - came on BBC1's On The Record and also included Liberal Democrat deputy leader Alan Beith..