Former first minister Henry McLeish has angrily rejected suggestions he backed the SNP.
Mr McLeish, who sat as Labour’s Central Fife MSP between 1999 and 2003, insisted he was supporting Iain Gray in the race to Holyrood and had been campaigning for the party.
He was responding to press reports that he had dealt a blow to Labour by backing the SNP’s policy for minimum pricing of alcohol.
“The alcohol problem must be addressed by legislating on minimum pricing,” he said. “It has to be priority.”
The nationalists tried to get minimum pricing legislation through the Scottish Parliament in 2010 but were stopped by opposition parties- including Labour.
But Labour sources pointed out Mr McLeish had actually come out in favour of minimum pricing as early as December 2009.
The Fife politician reiterated his support for Labour and said he would be continuing to campaign for Mid Fife and Glenrothes candidate Claire Baker.
“I have been out campaigning with Gordon Brown in my own part of Fife supporting my local Labour candidate Claire Baker,” he told The Courier.
“I will be voting Labour on Thursday and spending all day on the campaign trail within my old constituency with Labour’s activists.
“I am hugely honoured to have been a Labour first minister of Scotland and in this election I am supporting Iain Gray for first minister.”
The question of how Scotland can deal with alcohol abuse was given extra urgency as a study showed alcohol was a factor in more than 5500 GP consultations in just one day last month.
The British Medical Association report also found that equated to a cost of more than £28 million a year for the NHS.