First Minister Alex Salmond has been accused of letting “his foot off the pedal” in the fight against sectarianism by his Scottish Labour predecessor Jack McConnell.

McConnell´s attack, which came in an unusually outspoken interview with the Scottish Catholic Observer, focused on what he calls Salmond's “lack of action” on tackling Scotland’s sectarianism problem.

McConnell said: “Sectarianism is like a cancer, if you don´t keep on the attack it starts to grow back. That's what has happened; the treatment has stopped and the cancer is coming back.”

The MSP for Wishaw made eradicating sectarianism a key focus of his premiership, and warned that Salmond would be considered a “political coward” if he didn´t carry on the work.

“His reluctance to do so and his refusal to provide an adequate explanation are disgraceful and I think he has let Scotland down,” he added.

Alex Salmond is due to give a personal reaction in a rebuttal interview with the Scottish Catholic Observer.

Dr Paul Cairney, a politics lecturer at the University of Aberdeen and a member of the Scottish Devolution Monitoring team, believes that Salmond may go on the offensive.

“He is going to say two things: firstly that he hasn't given up on the agenda; he just has a different idea of what works and what doesn't," said Dr Cairney.

"The other thing he will no doubt say is that this is linked to Labour's problems in the polls.”

Despite political etiquette preventing elected officials from criticising their successors, Dr Cairney suggests that this kind of political backstabbing is not unheard of: “There's only been devolution for nine years and all the first ministers have been from the same party so this is really the first chance for it to happen.

"You certainly used to get it in UK Parliament – Ted Heath critical of Thatcher and then Thatcher critical of Major. So there is precedence in that sense.”

Mr McConnell has previously stated that having grown up as a Catholic in predominantly Protestant Motherwell, he was himself a victim of sectarian abuse, in part motivating his strong opinions on the matter, and its prominence in his policy agenda.