
First Minister Alex Salmond has urged Labour at Holyrood to back his plan to secure measures from the new UK government to aid economic recovery.He said Scotland's government and main opposition party should unite to make the demands of the Tory/Lib Dem administration.
But Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray accused SNP ministers of presiding over severe health service cuts.
He said NHS Greater Glasgow was planning to shed 1,200 posts.
The exchanges, during first minister's question time at Holyrood, came the day after Prime Minister David Cameron confirmed his earlier pledge to visit Scotland within days of winning the election.
Mr Salmond told Mr Gray: "When I meet the prime minister in the very near future, wouldn't it be a tremendous asset if I was able to say that the Scottish government and the leading opposition party in Scotland were united in wanting to see capital acceleration, borrowing powers, the £180m fossil fuel levy, the Olympic consequentials that should be running into the Scottish economy - all of the things that were denied us by a Labour administration in Westminster.
"But now, unencumbered by the guilt of office at Westminster, surely our opposition leader can join with the government and ask on behalf of Scotland that these things are done to revive the economy and protect our vital public services."
Mr Gray accused the SNP - as well as the Tories and Liberal Democrats - of wanting to cut vital, frontline Scottish services such as the NHS.
The Scottish Labour leader told MSPs that unions were presented with NHS Greater Glasgow's job reduction plan on Thursday morning.
He said more than half the posts under threat were those held by nurses and midwives.
And Mr Gray - who also mocked the SNP for failing to hit their 20 MP target in the election, where the party won six seats - said health cuts were also on the cards in Lothian and Ayrshire and Arran.
He said of the first minister: "When he told this chamber he would protect the NHS, was he covering up these cuts, or does he just not know what's going on - is the first minister shameless or just clueless?"
Mr Salmond said NHS spending across Scotland this year was £264m higher, despite a £500m "cut" handed down by the last UK government.
And he also accused Labour of "ducking" the opportunity of forming an anti-Tory coalition government.This article is from the BBC News website. ? British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

