EDINBURGH - An opinion poll in the Scotsman yesterday put the Tories a full 30 points behind Labour - and six points behind the second placed Scottish National Party (SNP). The figures - Labour at 47 per cent, the SNP at 23, the Tories at 17, and the Liberal Democrats at 10 - are even worse for the Tories than their 1992 general election performance in Scotland, where they received 26 per cent of the vote.
But such is the scale of the Tories long term decline in Scotland that 1992 was viewed not as a defeat but an astonishing electoral victory. The Tories went into that election campaign with 10 MPs and came out with 11. Before then, there had been serious talk of a Tory wipe out.
They staged a Lazarus like performance with one of the oldest tricks in the book, divide and rule against the massed ranks of Labour and the SNP. In the Scottish four party system, a small increase in support can pay disproportionately large dividends.
Yesterday's ICM poll also highlighted potential weaknesses in Labour's armour which Mr Major is certain to exploit. A full 75 per cent of Scottish voters consider it unfair that under Labour's devolution plans, Scotland's Westminster MPs could continue voting on English and Welsh matters.