ANGUS Robertson will be no Ed Balls, the First Minister has claimed after the Tories said they were working overtime to oust the SNP’s Westminster leader in next month’s General Election.

Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson said her party had a “pretty good” chance of victory in the Moray constituency, where Robertson is defending a majority of 9065.

The Tories have put up MSP, Councillor, and football referee Douglas Ross as their candidate in the constituency, and believe Robertson could be their big scalp of the 2017 election.

Davidson said: “It’s a very pro-Union part of the country, and it was the most pro-Brexit area of Scotland. I also think for those people, the 50.1 per cent of people in Moray who voted Remain, similar to thousands of people across Scotland who voted Remain that are also pro-Union, they are really angry.”

She added: “I think should Angus Robertson’s seat fall, that’s a real Ed Balls moment for Scotland.”

Before gaining fame for his appearances on the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, Balls had been shadow chancellor and the MP for the Morley and Outwood constituency, but at the last general election lost the seat to the Tories.

Nicola Sturgeon, who was campaigning in Leith, said she was confident Robertson would not follow Ed Balls’ path, having to don a sparkly matador’s costume and dance a paso doble on prime time Saturday night television.

Asked if she was concerned about her depute leader losing his seat, Sturgeon replied: “No, absolutely not.

“Angus is not only a really strong local MP in Moray with a great deal of respect for the work he’s done locally, but I think as anybody will have observed over the last couple of years he’s been the only effective leader of the opposition in the House of Commons.

“So Angus is a fantastic MP, a fantastic deputy leader, has been a fantastic leader of the group and I’m confident he’ll continue to be all of these things after the election.”

Meanwhile, Labour’s Diane Abbott managed to mangle the party’s big announcement on extra police officers, by seemingly suggesting her party would only pay the 10,000 extra police £30 a year.

The shadow home secretary stumbled over the cost, during an exchange with LBC’s Nick Ferrari.

Although the policy is to recruit 10,000 officers, Abbott told the talk show host 25,000 new recruits would be brought in annually, before later saying 250,000 policemen would be employed in the first year of the scheme.

She told LBC: “Well, if we recruit the 10,000 police men and women over a four-year period, we believe it will be about £300,000.”

Ferrari replied: “£300,000 for 10,000 police officers? How much are you paying them?”

Abbott then said: “No, I mean, sorry, they will cost, it will cost about, about £80 million.”

“About £80 million? How do you get to that figure?” he said.

Abbott answered: “We get to that figure because we anticipate recruiting 25,000 extra police officers a year at least over a period of four years.

“And we are looking at both what average police wages are generally, but also specifically police wages in London.”

Abbott went on to say that in the first year of the scheme the party expected to recruit 250,000 policemen.

“The figures are that the additional cost in year one, when we anticipate recruiting about 250,000 policemen, will be £64.3 million,” she said.

When Ferrari queried the figure of 250,000 policemen, Abbott responded: “And women.”

Challenged again on the figure, she said: “No, we are recruiting two thousand and – perhaps – two hundred and fifty.” Ferrari asked where the 250,000 came from.

Abbott responded: “I think you said that, not me.”

He replied: “I can assure you you said that, because I wrote it down.”

Prime Minister Theresa May meanwhile was accused of locking local media in a room to stop them filming her visit of a factory in Cornwall.

Reporters from Cornwall Live said they were stopped from attending the Prime Minister’s campaign stop, when May’s press officers realised they wanted to film what was happening.

The site was granted two questions with May but was prevented from filming the interview or any part of the visit. “It just feels likes it’s all very tightly controlled,” the site’s editor said.

A Conservative spokesman insisted no journalists were locked in a room during May’s visit: “Theresa May has so far taken four times as many questions from journalists as floundering Jeremy Corbyn while his cabinet can’t even answer basic questions about how they would pay for his nonsensical policies.”