Scuffles broke out and insults were hurled yesterday as the battle for Scotland's future descended into its most acrimonious day of political fighting.
Two polls by ICM and Opinium both showed the No campaign ahead with a four-point lead, 52 per cent to 48 per cent. However, the results are close to the margin of error.
The Opinium poll shows that the No campaign has a 16-point lead among women while Yes has a six-point lead among men.
The Labour leader, Ed Miliband (pictured), said the campaign had "an ugly side" after he was forced to cut short a visit to Edinburgh having been jostled and heckled, while George Galloway, the Respect MP, claimed he had been told that he was going to "face a bullet" at a rally in Glasgow.
With emotions running high in the final hours before polling begins tonight NZT in the referendum, nationalists were accused of waging a "campaign of lies" on the NHS, with the future of the health service set to be the crucial final battleground in the referendum.
Claim and counterclaim intensified between the two camps yesterday, but today the SNP leader, Alex Salmond, was expected to issue an appeal to the people of Scotland, urging them to "wake up on Friday ... to the first day of a better country".
In his open letter, Salmond urges Scots to cast their vote with "a clear head and a clear conscience", describing the moment facing them in the polling booth as "the greatest, most empowering moment any of us will ever have". His letter concludes with the rallying call: "Let's do this." He says: "For every scare tactic, there is a message of hope, opportunity and possibility."
But yesterday, leaders from the No campaign claimed to be the victims of heckling and harassment, with Miliband having been called a "f***ing liar" and Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat minister, saying he was shouted down at a Glasgow rally.
A succession of senior Labour figures turned on Salmond, accusing him and his party of repeatedly lying by suggesting that the NHS in Scotland would be vulnerable to privatisation in the event of a No vote. Salmond, Scotland's First Minister, said the suggestion that NHS funding would have to be cut in order to make the savings was "absolutely untrue".
- AFP, Telegraph Group Ltd
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