The nationalist parties have been highlighting Iraq, seeking to make Tony Blair's "lies" over the conflict the central issue of the campaign.

The SNP welcomed a new Scottish opinion poll which shows support for Labour in Scotland has dropped by seven per cent since the publication of the attorney general's legal advice.

And on Saturday Plaid Cymru president Dafydd Iwan also kept up the attack, telling supporters at a Bangor peace rally that Iraq had undermined the principle that the will of the United Nations should always be supreme.

Scottish nationalist leader Alex Salmond said the new poll proved that Iraq was sending Labour voters away from the party in droves.

"The host of new accounts in today's papers about Labour's illegal and immoral actions will now drive the message home amongst voters," he said.

"With each passing day more facts about Blair's conduct over the war tumble out, shredding the remaining credibility of this distrusted and discredited politician. 

"Labour are in tatters over the war, and their support is now looking for another party to place their trust in. 

"With Michael Howard's Tories more pro-war than George Bush, and the two-faced Lib Dems attempting to avoid upsetting their Labour masters by stifling debate on Iraq in the Scottish parliament, the people of Scotland know that can only be the SNP."

Youth manifesto

SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon also launched the party's youth manifesto in Edinburgh, together with some of the SNP's youngest candidates.

"In a recent poll the vast majority of young Scots see independence as the future they want for their country," she said.

"The sad truth is that at present we are haemorrhaging young talented people are having Scotland in droves and forced out to find jobs elsewhere," she said.

"Only the SNP can make Scotland matter for the future."

Eight 'failures'

Meanwhile, the Welsh nationalists listed eight reasons why Blair had failed Wales, and unveiled a similar list of eight reasons to vote Plaid Cymru.

They said Labour had let Wales down by embarking on the Iraq war, imposing tuition fees on Welsh students, presiding over the unfair "stealth" council tax and leaving pensioners in poverty by failing to restore the earnings link.

Plaid also criticised Labour for making houses unaffordable for ordinary people, making large parts of Wales poorer than Eastern Europe, keeping Welsh patients waiting for treatment and not giving Wales a proper parliament of its own.

Plaid Cymru's eight pledges were to cut NHS waiting times, tackle anti-social behaviour, making houses affordable, extending nursery provision, abolish tuition fees, ban junk food advertising, raise the minimum wage to £5.60 and keep the 81,000 Welsh jobs that depend on European money.

"After eight years of failure it is time to teach Blair a lesson for his lies and failures," the party's Westminster leader Elfyn Llwyd said.

"People will not forget the illegal war in Iraq, which cost an estimated 100,000 innocent Iraqi lives.

"People will not forget New Labour's broken promises on tuition fees, their record on lengthening waiting lists and their failure to make housing affordable for ordinary people."