SCOTTISH Tory MPs including Douglas Ross, Alister Jack and Andrew Bowie would be in danger of losing their seats to the SNP if there was a general election tomorrow, according to predictions.
A new opinion poll published yesterday suggested voters are shifting support away from the Conservatives, with two-thirds considering the governing party “very sleazy”.
Even before the recent revelations about MPs’ second jobs and the handling of the Owen Paterson affair, there have been predictions Tory MPs north of the Border are at risk due to falling support.
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Party leader Ross, Scottish Secretary Jack and former Tory vice-chair Bowie would all lose their seats to the SNP at the moment, according to the Electoral Calculus site.
The SNP would also pick up all four seats currently held by the LibDems, it suggests, based on the most recent opinion polls of Scottish voting intentions for Westminster conducted in September.
Meanwhile the Political Betting website named Jack, Bowie and David Duguid (above) as among the MPs in danger, based on UK-wide Ipsos Mori polling last week which found support for the Conservatives dropping four points to 35%.
All would lose their seats to the SNP it suggested, while Nicola Sturgeon’s party would also gain another seat from the Conservatives under proposed boundary changes.
It also predicted the SNP would gain three seats from the LibDems.
Another site Election Maps UK, which is updated monthly, has also suggested the SNP would gain seven seats – four from the Tories and three from the LibDems. The Tory MPs at risk would include David Mundell, it predicts.
Martin Baxter, founder and CEO of Electoral Calculus, said: “What the recent polls seem to be suggesting is the SNP are continuing to do pretty strongly and are a bit up even on the [2019] general election performance.
“The SNP gained support round about March or spring 2020 compared with the general election, and with a little bit of variation up and down have held that support quite well for the last year and a half.
“I guess you are seeing the outcome of the whole of politics – everyone’s feelings about Covid, Brexit, the environment, tax, all the issues are in there.
“So far in this parliament the SNP are doing very well.”
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On the issue of the LibDems losing seats Baxter said there had been a drop in support since the 2019 General Election, but the party was good at “on the ground” campaigning and keeping their vote high in seats they hold.
He added: “These figures are based on having another general election immediately.
“It will more likely be that the next general election is in 2023 or 2024, and public opinion may have changed significantly by then.
“There may also be other factors, which are not included in our modelling, such as pro-Union tactical voting which may affect the actual result in particular seats.”
SNP depute leader Keith Brown said: “It’s not hard to see why the Tories would face a possible wipe out if an election were held tomorrow – with their arrogant denial of Scottish democracy to the ever growing corruption scandal engulfing the party.
“Every day the Tories seem to become more and more out-of-touch with the people of Scotland and it appears that the party have no intention to try to change that.
“The people of Scotland deserve a chance to choose to escape Westminster, the rotten corruption of the Tory party and the damage it is inflicting on families across Scotland – that is why Scotland overwhelmingly voted to send the SNP back into government with a cast iron mandate to hold an independence referendum in this year’s Holyrood elections.”
Yesterday’s poll by Savanta ComRes for the Daily Mail put Labour six points ahead of the Conservatives in the wake of allegations of sleaze against Tory MPs.
YouGov polling also suggested the Tories had lost their lead, with its findings putting Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer’s party neck and neck on 35% of the vote share.
Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme, polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice said: “It has been pretty clear for the past week that the Owen Paterson story and the subsequent fall-out has been costing the Conservatives some support, although not on the scale one would regard as being a complete disaster.”
He said the YouGov poll found 60% regard the Conservative party as sleazy and disreputable – up from just over 50% earlier this year.
“It is not quite on the scale of the 66% that was recorded during the ‘Cash for Questions’ affair that was recorded in 1994, but you can see that we have got evidence as to how the story is cutting through,” he added.
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