WHILE polling suggests the SNP is on course to win 70 of the 73 first-past-the-post seats at the Holyrood elections tomorrow the parties all have constituencies they believe are winnable despite the nationwide surge of Nicola Sturgeon’s party.
Top of the SNP’s list and one which is being heavily defended by Labour is East Lothian.
Former Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray held onto the seat in 2011 with a majority of just 151 votes ahead of the SNP’s David Berry. This time DJ Johnston-Smith will be the SNP challenger. Johnston-Smith as election agent helped George Kerevan win the seat for the SNP at last year’s General Election and will be hoping his campaigning efforts will pay off tomorrow.
On the other side of the country meanwhile, the SNP has a strong chance of taking Greenock and Inverclyde, where Duncan McNeil, who had represented the area for Labour since 1999, is retiring. Labour’s new candidate, left-winger Siobhan McCready, will be fighting off a tough challenge from the SNP’s Stuart McMillan, who was elected as an SNP list MSP for West of Scotland.
McMillan was elected in 2007 and re-elected in the 2011 election, where he also contested the Greenock and Inverclyde constituency but lost to McNeil.
The SNP will be hoping similar circumstances in Edinburgh Northern and Leith, where veteran MSP Malcolm Chisholm is standing down, will help their candidate, lawyer Ben Macpherson, take the seat. Senior councillor Lesley Hinds will be hoping to hold the seat for Labour.
Kezia Dugdale’s party faces a battering in the constituencies, but the party has poured resources into the late former First Minister Donald Dewar’s seat of Glasgow Anniesland. Bill Kidd for the SNP took the seat from Labour in 2011 with a majority of just seven votes and former MSP Bill Butler is hoping to win it back for Labour.
In Edinburgh, hopes are high among Labour activists for Edinburgh Southern. The corresponding Westminster seat of Edinburgh South was the only Scottish constituency held by Labour at last year’s General Election and its MP, the Shadow Scottish Secretary Ian Murray, has been campaigning hard for his party’s candidate Daniel Johnson to take the seat from Jim Eadie. Eadie, meanwhile, will be fighting hard to build on his 693.
Back in the Glasgow suburb of Eastwood pollsters are predicting a three-way split between the SNP, Labour and the Conservatives could boost the chances of the Tories’ Jackson Carlaw.
Former Labour leadership candidate Ken Macintosh has held the seat for his party since 1999, but with Stewart Maxwell for the SNP and Carlaw for the Tories challenging him, he faces a tough battle.
The Tories are keen on their chances in Dumfriesshire which again could be an exciting contest on election night.
Elaine Murray has represented the area for Labour since 1999, and faces the Tories’ Oliver Mundell – the son of Secretary of State David Mundell – and former newspaper editor Joan McAlpine for the SNP.
Meanwhile, for the Scottish Greens co-convener Patrick Harvie will be hoping his high national profile will help him seize Glasgow Kelvin from the SNP’s Sandra White, while the Liberal Democrats are hoping Alex Cole-Hamilton may be able to take back the seat of Edinburgh Western previously held by the party’s Margaret Smith, which was won by the SNP’s Colin Weir in 2011.
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