Salmond says Queen will be proud monarch of iScotland, claims No campaign disintegrating

The First Minister said he had an audience at Balmoral Castle two weeks ago but would not reveal what was discussed.

He dismissed press reports that the Queen is concerned about the prospect of Scottish independence.

"I want the Queen as head of state, as Queen of Scots of an independent Scotland as her ancestors were," he said at a photocall outside St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh today.

"I think Her Majesty the Queen, who has seen so many events in the course of her long reign, will be proud to be Queen of Scots, and indeed we would be proud to have her as monarch of this land.

"I had an audience at Balmoral some two weeks ago, but the proper position is you don't discuss these matters in public.

"And I think the statement from the Palace about the Queen's neutrality in this matter is a perfectly satisfactory and perfectly sensible one.

"And, of course, one thing that the polls showed at the weekend, in addition to the substantial move to the Yes campaign, is the enthusiasm of the people of Scotland to have Her Majesty the Queen as our Queen of Scots."

Meanwhile, Salmond has dismissed the united front of the three main pro-union parties to pledge more powers for Scotland if it rejects independence as "a sign of the total disintegration of the No campaign".

Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in Scotland joined together at an event in Edinburgh where they promised change.

It came after former prime minister Gordon Brown set out his proposed schedule for new powers to be transferred north, saying work on it would start immediately after the referendum.

He declared a No vote next week would be the "starting gun for action".

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said the parties have "broad themes" in common in their devolution proposals, and urged Scots to vote No as the "patriotic choice" to allow the parties to mould them into a single offering.

"We have all agreed that there should be more powers over income tax, we have all agreed that there should be more welfare devolved to the Scottish Parliament," she said.

"We have also agreed on the things that we need to leave. We have all agreed that actually our businesses in Scotland don't want to see different rates of corporation tax on both sides of the border.

"So you can see that there are broad themes developing there, but we want to involve civic Scotland too.

"This isn't going to be owned just by us, this is owned by Scotland. This is a way for Scotland to shape the powers that it has in the future without walking away from the UK.

"This is a patriotic choice."

Mr Brown spoke of a ''command paper'' to be published by the present UK Government setting out all the proposals for change no later than the end of next month.

A white paper would be drawn up in November after a period of consultation, with draft clauses for legislation expected in January.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: "We are going to commit to delivering on more taxation and more welfare, that's the commitment that we are standing here to give certainty to people in Scotland that they know, if they vote No in September, it will lead to more radical change right across Scotland."

Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont said: "We agree that there should be more tax-raising powers for the Scottish Parliament, there should be welfare, and we need to do more to stimulate the economy."

Mr Salmond met European Union citizens who have a right to vote in the referendum and are backing Yes at a photocall outside Edinburgh's St Giles Cathedral shortly after the unionist announcement at nearby Dynamic Earth.

"This is the day that the No campaign finally fell apart at the seams," he said.

"We now know after all of the hype of the last 48 hours they realised that the ground was shifting under their feet.

"But actually, nothing new in this package whatsoever. This is a retreading, a repackaging, retimetabling about what they said in the spring.

"Now, people have kind of passed their verdict on what they said in the spring.

"It's totally inadequate, it's not enough. It's nothing approaching the powers that Scotland needs to create jobs, to save the health service and build a better society.

"The polls at the weekend, which caused so much panic in the breasties of the No campaign, actually showed that independence was the most popular option.

"And of course David Cameron and George Osborne, their one red-line issue in setting up this referendum was not to allow devo max, as it is called, on to the ballot paper.

"So to actually produce something which is far short of that, which is weak, insipid and has already been discounted by the Scottish people with days to go in the campaign, after hundreds of thousands of people have already voted, is a sign of the total disintegration of the No campaign.

"I've never seen a campaign disintegrate in the way that the No campaign is disintegrating at the moment."