‘Tartan Tories’ returning from SNP - Ruth Davidson

PROFESSIONALS and “Tartan Tories” that defected to the SNP are flocking back to the Conservatives for the General Election, according to Scottish party leader Ruth Davidson.

Scottish Conservative Leader Ruth Davidson says 2010 SNP voters are now coming back to the Conservatives. Picture: PA

Ms Davidson predicted the Tories will increase their vote in Scotland amid the SNP “tsunami”, the fall of Labour in Scotland and the collapse of the Liberal Democrats.

Using military language, the former Territorial Army signaller said her party is “the best regimented, best resourced and certainly the best recruited that we have had since 1992”.

“We had the 80,000 new Conservative Friends of the Union (CFU) members across the referendum,” she said in a briefing to journalists.

“Our work hasn’t stopped since September and we have recruited a lot of these people to be activists, and we have had more people coming forward as candidates.

“The collapse of the Lib Dems means that we are picking up a lot of support from professional voters, the type that have left us over the last 20 years.

“The YouGov poll earlier this week also shows that we are getting about 10 per cent of 2010 SNP voters, the Tartan Tories that had left us and voted SNP but didn’t believe in independence have come home to us, which is good.

“That’s the kind of ground war that we are fighting. I’ll continue to play up to the cameras and do the air war, but the ground war that we have got is probably the best-regimented, best-resourced and certainly the best-recruited that we have had since 1992.

“I am sick and tired of us continually under-performing in Scotland.

“I think you will find that we will manage to surprise some people in this election when you have got a Labour Party that has lost about a third of their vote, the Lib Dems that have lost more than two-thirds we will, I believe, not just hold firm but will slightly increase our vote.

“Given the SNP tsunami that is coming along, that will be no small achievement in this campaign.

“Last time out we got 412,000 votes and this year I think we will be much closer to the half million mark.

“How far the Labour Party falls is not my responsibility, nor is it in my gift.”