IT is a measure of how much David Mundell, Scotland’s only Tory MP, is worried about retaining his own seat that he is keeping a relatively low profile on the national scene and is assiduously working his way around his Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale constituency, where he has a reputation as a hard-working local MP.

Normally a Secretary of State for Scotland would be popping up everywhere bolstering his party’s candidates, but with one of the smallest majorities in Scotland and very much aware that the SNP see him as a major target, Mundell has decided on a localised campaign.

He started early – his first election leaflet dropped through the letterboxes before the local government elections were held.

Mundell represented his party in the three Scottish party leaders’ debates on television in 2010 but Ruth Davidson has that job now. Indeed, last week it was Davidson who was helping him campaign in the constituency which is known as DCT for short.

So clearly the lawyer from Lockerbie is worried that his 12 years as MP might be coming to an end, though several events have come together to make the seat a marginal that is slightly in his favour.

Stretching from the Solway Firth as far north as the hamlet of Carlops, just ten miles south of the Edinburgh City bypass, the constituency was minted in time for the 2005 General Election, in which Mundell was famously the only Conservative MP elected in Scotland, beating Labour into second place.

He was the sole Tory again in 2010 and 2015, though in the last election his main rival turned out to be the SNP candidate. With Labour collapsing, Mundell’s majority over the SNP’s Emma Harper was slashed to just 798 on a massive turnout for the area of 76.1 per cent, up 7.2 per cent on 2010 and more than five per cent bigger than the turnout at the subsequent EU referendum, in which Mundell was a keen Remain campaigner.

Back in March of last year he gave one soundbite that resonated, saying a vote for Leave would be a “backward step”, and then hit the headlines when it was revealed that his son Oliver, the newly-elected MSP for Dumfriesshire, was voting Leave.

At that time Mundell was very much more high-profile than usual because he came out as gay in January of 2016 after having been married for many years and having three children. It says something about modern Scotland than in The National’s researches in DCT, only one person mentioned the matter, and that was to approve of it – though of course there may be many people with other thoughts and just not prepared to air them.

Though the constituency boundaries are not the same for these elections, it is estimated that in DCT the Remain vote was about 56 per cent. Like every other Cabinet minister, Mundell is now a confirmed Brexiteer. This does not seem to be playing well with a local farming community dependent on EU subsidies of one type or another – “he’s changed his mind on Brexit, and that’s going down like a lead balloon with some farmers,” said one local foodstuff supplier.

No wonder Mundell hailed the news that farmers would get their full payments for the life of this parliament, though of course that might be five years, five months or five minutes depending on the result. In the local council elections last month, Conservative candidates polled many more first-preference votes than the other parties standing in wards within DCT, and this has led some forecasters to predict that Mundell could increase his majority substantially. The SNP candidate is definitely the main other contender, but the outcome in this constituency may well depend on how other parties fare.

Mundell will certainly benefit from the fact that for the third election in a row, the SNP, Labour and LibDems are fielding new candidates – Mairi McAllan, Douglas Beattie and John Ferry respectively.

Much was made of the fact that the Scottish Greens would not be standing against him, but most pundits missed the fact that Ukip are also not contesting the seat.

In 2015, Ukip’s Kevin Newton polled 1,472 to beat the LibDems into fifth place, while the Greens’ Jody Jamieson gathered 839 votes. Both lost their deposits, and where those 2,311 votes go might well determine who wins DCT, with Ukip votes almost certain to go to Mundell.

In Peebles, the largest town in the constituency, people were happy to talk about issues and especially Brexit, with the majority complaining that Scotland had been ignored.

Mary MacDonald from just west of Peebles said: “David Mundell is a nice man, but his party is turning very nasty on Brexit and that could backfire on him, because the EU is huge for our farming and tourism upon which this area depends.”

An SNP badge-wearing supporter called Gerard – “no names because I don’t want trolled by Britnats” – said Mundell’s anti-SNP stance seemed to be his only real policy.

He said: “As a party we have to get people to realise that only the SNP can stand up for Scotland against the Tories, and that all the Unionist claptrap should be ignored, for I am worried that Labour’s vote here will collapse again and go straight to the Tories.”

Agnes McFadyen was adamant that she would never vote Tory “even though Mr Mundell is a nice man.”

She said: “I’ve had two leaflets through my door from him and the other candidates haven’t been anywhere near me. That worries me.

“The Tories want an anti-SNP, anti-referendum vote, but it’s a simple fact that if all of us who voted Remain were to use this election to show our dissatisfaction with Brexit, Mr Mundell and every other Tory in Scotland would be beaten out of sight.”

Clearly this constituency is about David Mundell’s personal standing with voters – he has, after all, won three times in a row – against policy-driven opposition from the SNP in particular.

The signs are that the Tory tactics that worked in the local elections – say a lot about not wanting another referendum and nothing on policies – are very much in play in DCT.