General Election 2010: David Cameron frustrated by Scottish failure

• David Cameron addresses workers in East Renfrewshire yesterday. Picture: Robert Perry

As the Conservative leader visited Scotland for only the second time in the campaign last night, an exclusive poll for The Scotsman revealed there was little hope his party could improve upon the solitary seat it gained in the 2005 general election.

The figures show the party trailing in fourth place in Scotland while they show it is less trusted on all key policy areas than its rivals, apart from immigration.

By contrast, despite a difficult campaign, Labour support remains solid and the view of Prime Minister Gordon Brown remains largely positive.

• How the figures stack up in our exclusive Scotsman/YouGov poll

Mr Cameron was judged to be the only UK leader doing a bad job, while only one in seven Scots said they would welcome a Liberal-Tory coalition in the event of a hung parliament. Almost half said they would favour a Labour-Liberal deal.

The findings also revealed Scots were more likely to back independence under a Conservative government, suggesting that many voters fear a Tory administration will not act in Scotland's interests.

A quarter of Scots also said they would support a Scottish Government that actively refused to co-operate with a UK administration headed by Mr Cameron, casting doubt on the Conservative leader's ability to ease relations between Westminster and Holyrood via his "respect" agenda.

The YouGov poll of 1,507 adults showed the Conservatives unchanged in fourth place on 17 per cent, having failed to engineer the same increase in popularity in Scotland as they have experienced elsewhere in the UK following Mr Cameron's performance in the final televised leaders' debate.

Yesterday, as he visited the key marginal seat of East Renfrewshire, Mr Cameron told The Scotsman he was "frustrated" that his campaigning efforts had failed to secure the same level of support among Scottish voters that could see his party win the most seats elsewhere in the UK tomorrow.

He said: "Of course it is always frustrating when you are not always getting through.

"I believe in the UK and I will always fight for a Conservative recovery in Scotland. I think there are many, many people who share Conservative values: the importance of the family, importance of enterprise, passionate about Scotland and the UK, who are instinctively Conservatives."

Presented with The Scotsman poll finding, Mr Cameron responded: "Poll… poll shmole."

He continued: "We have got a big one on Thursday. What's the point of worrying about polls now, everyone has got a chance to vote on Thursday."

The latest UK-wide opinion data suggests the Conservatives remain the most popular party, with a share of the vote between 35 and 37 per cent, that would leave them still short of an overall majority.

Meanwhile, polling in Wales – another area of the UK in which the Tories were wiped out in 1997 – shows the party is set to improve significantly on its 2005 showing.

There, it currently polls at 23.5 per cent, a result that would see it winning four extra seats to add to the three it already holds.

According to Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University, the latest Scottish figures would leave the Conservatives struggling to repeat that feat in Scotland, a result that will raise questions about the competence of the Scottish party leadership and could stir up a constitutional crisis among a Scottish population that may wake up on 7 May to find itself governed by a party it had rejected overwhelmingly.

Despite a strong showing in the televised leaders' debates, Mr Cameron is the only leader to suffer from a negative approval rating in our poll, with 34 per cent of Scots believing he is doing a bad job in comparison to 32 per cent that gave him their backing.

Scottish voters also dismissed the Tory stance on public spending, with 46 per cent calling for a delay in cuts and 40 per cent agreeing that the cuts should begin immediately in line with Conservative policy.

And the figures suggested a Tory victory would make Scottish independence more likely, with 34 per cent of Scots more willing to back separation, up from 30 per cent in February.

But just as Mr Cameron has struggled to convince sceptical Scots, our poll reveals that the Labour support has remained rock solid, despite the party running a campaign that 38 per cent of voters described as the worst of all the parties and which has led them into third place in the UK behind the resurgent Lib Dems. The poll found Labour support remained constant on 37 per cent, ahead of the Lib Dems on 22 per cent (unchanged) and the SNP up one on 21 per cent.

These results would see Labour win 39 seats – including that formerly held by the Speaker – but lose one seat each to the Liberal Democrats and the SNP in an otherwise unchanged electoral map in Scotland.

The steady picture chimed with the message delivered by voters that the defining moments of the 2010 General Election have failed to significantly alter their voting intentions.

A massive 76 per cent of respondents said the three televised debates had not changed their minds about who to vote for, despite a clear surge in the personal popularity of the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.

And 68 per cent said Mr Brown's "bigot" gaffe was "a storm in a teacup", with only 30 per cent believing it showed him in a bad light.

That perception helped to keep Mr Brown's personal approval ratings high among Scotland's voters, with 43 per cent saying he was doing a good job against 39 bad.

Meanwhile, 42 per cent believed Mr Brown should carry on in his role as Prime Minister even if Labour ended up the largest party but short of a working majority.

Labour also polled first in all major areas apart from immigration.

A Conservative Party spokesman insisted the YouGov sample would not reflect the results come polling day.

"Our private polling in our 11 target seats the length and breadth of Scotland shows we are winning the arguments and winning votes as people face the decision of whether they want five more years of the same, or change with David Cameron," he said. "In these key seats, the momentum is with us and Scotland will be part of the change."

But Labour's Mark Lazarowicz said the results showed Scots had no appetite for a Conservative government.

"Scots know that only a vote for Labour can stop the Tories forming the next government. This is now decision time," he said.

• Conservative leader David Cameron talks to The Scotsman's Eddie Barnes yesterday on board the Tories' campaign bus. Picture: Robert Perry