ALEX SALMOND - 'I thought we would win and my only regret is how much better Scotland would be now'

EX-FIRST MINISTER LOOKS BACK ON 2014 CAMPAIGN

- DAN VEVERS

• Ex-SNP leader says then PM was panicking

• We will have indy within 10 years, he insists

ALEX Salmond claims David Cameron was so worried about losing the IndyRef campaign, he rang world leaders pleading for help.

The former first minister said the then Tory PM was "s****ing himself" so much in the run-up to the vote that he even called Vladimir Putin.

Salmond, who led the Yes campaign a decade ago, said Cameron also asked Barack Obama and Angela Merkel to speak out against indy.

Ultimately, Scots voted No to independence by 55 per cent to 45 per cent on September 18, 2014.

Salmond spoke to the Daily Record ahead of a Yes rally on Saturday in Glasgow to mark the 10th anniversary.

Salmond said: "Let's just use a direct phrase - the prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was sing himself in the last 10 days of the campaign.

"He was phoning up world leaders. He phoned up Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, the guy in Australia, Vladimir Putin in order to get them mobilised to try and say something about this.

"Very few people answered them, incidentally...Obama made a very lukewarm statement.

"So that's how worried the No campaign were.

"But you've got to accept that when you get an establishment regrouping in that last week of the campaign, that has an effect. And again, they had a few more guns to fire than we did at that stage."

In early 2014, a Russian news agency reported claims Cameron had sought Putin's support to publicly oppose independence.