Alistair Darling has claimed that Alex Salmond's campaign for Scottish independence has stalled at the starting line after a poll found that only a third of Scots want to leave the UK.

The poll findings were released by the former chancellor a few hours before Salmond launched his party's long-awaited "Yes Scotland" campaign for the referendum on independence in 2014, centred on a new public declaration supporting separation under the slogan "Scotland's Future in Scotland's Hands".

The event at a multiscreen cinema in Edinburgh, billed as the largest community-based political movement in the country's history, will feature pro-independence celebrities and public figures including former Labour politicians such as the former Falkirk MP Dennis Canavan.

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