Labour face a Scottish melt-down at the general election, with even seats like Dundee West falling to the SNP, new research has shown.
Meanwhile, big-hitters including Labour’s Douglas Alexander and the Liberal Democrats’ Danny Alexander could lose their seats as the SNP surges ahead.
According to explosive research by Tory peer Lord Ashcroft, more people in the traditional Labour heartland of Dundee West prefer David Cameron to the beleaguered Labour leader Ed Miliband.
Writing on his website Lord Ashcroft said: “Douglas Alexander, Labour’s campaign manager and the Shadow Foreign Secretary, would lose his Paisley & Renfrewshire South seat with a swing to the SNP of 25%.
“Elsewhere, (Alex) Salmond would be back in Westminster with a comfortable majority over the Lib Dems, and Chief Secretary Danny Alexander would lose by 29 points.”
The most popular outcome for May, Lord Ashcroft found, is a Labour-SNP coalition, with 39% of voters, including 62% of SNP supporters and 79% of Labour-SNP switchers, favouring that option.
Just 38% of people said they were dissatisfied with David Cameron as Prime Minister and would rather have Ed Miliband.See further analysis of the Ashcroft polls in Thursday’s CourierLord Ashcroft said an SNP swing of 21%, as found in his research, repeated across Scotland on May 7 would endanger 35 of Labour’s 41 seats there.
He added: “But we cannot assume such a uniform swing. Most of the seats in this survey are in areas which returned a particularly strong yes vote in September, where the SNP attraction will naturally be greater; in future rounds of research we may find a different pattern where support for independence was lower.
“Even so, the prospect of losing heartland seats will be a blow to Labour’s hopes: every seat they lose in Scotland means another they have to win from the Conservatives in England, while the national polls could not be much narrower.”
Lord Ashcroft said the polls should be seen simply as a snapshot, not a prediction, but advised the Labour party it has “room for improvement” in its electioneering over the next three months.
SNP general election campaign director Angus Robertson said: “These polls include some of Labour’s safest seats in the whole of the UK as well as Scotland, and they are clearly excellent for the SNP but we are taking absolutely nothing for granted, and will work hard for every vote and seat in May.”
Scottish Labour Leader Jim Murphy said: “These polls show that Scottish Labour is well behind and has a big gap to close.
“But in the end the only people who will benefit from these polls are David Cameron and the Tories.
“It is a simple fact that the single biggest party gets to form the next government.
“The more seats the SNP get from Labour, the more likely it is the Tories will be the biggest party and David Cameron will get into government through the back door.
“That would be a terrible outcome for Scotland but it’s what might happen if Scotland votes SNP.”