The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats brushed off concerns about their ailing political fortunes in Scotland yesterday as an opinion poll showed them trailing far behind Labour and the Scottish nationalists.
A System Three poll for the Herald newspaper put support for the Conservatives at just 12 per cent, 6 per cent lower than the 1997 election when the party was wiped off the political map in Scotland, with Labour on 50 per cent and the SNP on 25 per cent. And despite increasing its share of support south of the border, the Scottish poll put the Lib Dems on just 9 per cent. This indicates that backing for Labour and the SNP is strong enough in the Highlands for a serious challenge to be mounted against the party leader, Mr Charles Kennedy, in his Ross, Skye and Inverness West seat.
Scottish voting intentions at this stage in the election are almost identical to the 1997 vote, according to the poll, raising the prospect of another dismal performance for the Tories. But at the party's daily press conference, the Conservative leader, Mr William Hague, announced defiantly that he was not discouraged "or even interested" in opinion polls in Scotland.
"The reason is that the predictions of opinion polls in Scotland about the results of the Scottish Parliament were even wider of the mark than opinion polls normally are and underestimated the Conservative vote by a full 50 per cent or more."
But the Foreign Office Minister, Mr Brian Wilson, warned that while Mr Hague might be able to ignore opinion polls in Scotland he could not avoid "the wrath of its voters".
Campaigning in Scotland yesterday, Mr Kennedy declared overall support for his party was "moving up". At a press conference in Edinburgh, where he outlined Liberal Democrat plans to invest more money in the National Health Service, Mr Kennedy was asked if he was concerned about losing his seat in the face of strong support for Labour and the SNP.
"In the kind of seat I represent, you don't win or lose in the four weeks of the election campaign," he replied.
In Wales, Labour accused Plaid Cymru's Rhondda candidate, Ms Leanne Wood, of "intolerance and narrow-mindedness" after she described Labour and the Tories as "British nationalists". Insisting she was not comparing the parties to the right-wing British National Party, Ms Wood said that since both parties adopted pro-British, pro-UK policies they should not be afraid to describe themselves as British nationalists.