Voters were poised to deliver a knife-edge result in Scotland, the focal point for local elections on Thursday which also include voting for a Welsh Assembly and 312 English councils.

Most polls during the campaign have given the Scottish National Party a lead sufficient to make the Nationalists the biggest single party in Scotland but well short of the 65 needed to deliver an overall majority at Holyrood. The SNP is committed to holding a referendum on independence, probably in 2010, a cause supported by only a third of Scots even though the party itself has benefited from growing anti-Labour sentiment.