The BBC's John Andrew: Electricity bosses blame delays on the sheer scale of damage

The companies said engineers are working flat out to cope with the damage and some had been called back from their Christmas holidays to help restore power.

But Clydesdale MP Jimmy Hood said the situation is appalling and has called for the chief executive of ScottishPower to resign. Mr Hood said he believed poor management and lack of investment were to blame for the extent of the problems.

"No amount of weaselly words from ScottishPower bosses can excuse their complete incompetence in protecting supplies in Scotland," he said.

"These people only last month were boasting of acquisitions of American companies from their huge and excessive profits. This month they can't keep the lights on in Scotland.

"I will be pressing the government to increase penalties from £50 to £10,000 - you have to make the punishment fit the crime."

A spokesman for ScottishPower rejected Mr Hood's criticism. "It was a huge weather event with 100,000 off supply. No system in the world can withstand 110mph winds. And its customary for electricity firms to second staff to help others in times of crisis," he said.

Customers most affected were in rural areas in the Lothians, Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway, south Lanarkshire and Ayrshire.

In the Scottish Hydro-Electric area in north and western Scotland only 24 consumers remain to be reconnected, a company spokeswoman said.

Grim forecast

After a lull, high winds are expected to reach 70mph in the north and west on Tuesday night.

About 9,000 homes in the Irish Republic are still blacked out and worsening conditions are making the work of repair crews attempting to restore electricity more difficult.

Electricity bosses in Northern Ireland have been defending their slow progress.

"We have found extraordinary levels of damage that we have not seen in 30 years," said Patrick Heron of Northern Ireland. "It's much greater than last year and it's just taking long time to come to grips with it because the damage is so extensive."

High winds in the West

Severe weather persists in the West Country. A country road in Cornwall was closed after part of a carriageway and a retaining wall crashed into an adjacent river.

A country road collapsed in Cornwall

The seafronts at Penzance, Cornwall, and Torquay, south Devon, were closed by police for a time at high tide when waves began breaking over the sea walls.

A 1,300-tonne Dutch freighter ran aground near Tynmouth in Devon. A coastguard tug went to the rescue but the ship managed to refloat itself at high tide.

The storms will have blown out most of their ferocity by the time they reach the south-east, forecasters said, but heavy rain is expected everywhere.

The Met Office predicted poor weather is likely to dampen New Year celebrations through into the weekend.

Only a few isolated minor roads remained closed and railway spokesmen reported that all services were running as normal.

A spokesman at AA Roadwatch said accidents were unusually scarce for such weather because of the very light traffic.