Which seats are the Scottish Tories targeting in the election?

The Scottish Conservatives were facing a difficult election this summer but SNP leader John Swinney may have thrown them a lifeline. In choosing to attack Holyrood’s standards committee for proposing a 27-day suspension for nationalist MSP Michael Matheson, Swinney has put his party on the wrong side of public opinion. Matheson was censured for running up an £11,000 data bill on his parliamentary iPad during a family holiday in Morocco and trying to have the taxpayer cover it. Swinney claims the standards process was prejudiced by one of the committee’s members and says he will oppose its recommendations.

This has been a welcome surprise for the Scottish Tories. A senior party figure tells me: ‘Matheson has huge cut-through. The voters see Swinney opposing a sanction they don’t think is enough.’ This matches what others say: Matheson is coming up on the doorsteps and the punters are not happy about it. It feeds into the impression that, after 17 years in government in Scotland, the SNP considers itself above the rules. It’s an impression the Conservatives are only too happy to kindle.

Until a few weeks ago, everyone knew what the Scottish Tory playbook was going to be for the general election. The party’s leader Douglas Ross had drawn on it in one First Minister’s Questions after another: hammer the SNP for its coalition with the Greens. The governing pact had become toxic with certain nationalist MSPs and some supporters, who were furious over capitulations to the Greens on gender reforms and road repairs. The Scottish Government’s turn against North Sea oil gave the Tories an opportunity to Green-bash their way to electoral gains in the North East.

Then Humza Yousaf abruptly broke the coalition before following it out the door. The Tories’ central campaign theme was gone. But the Matheson story, and particularly Swinney’s decision to back his personal friend, offers even more traction. And the Conservatives intend to ride it all the way to polling day – or until Swinney U-turns.

They’re not pinning their hopes entirely on Matheson. They believe that, while the party might suffer thanks to the anti-Tory wave sweeping England, there are opportunities to hold on in certain seats and even pick up others with an SNP incumbent. Although the Scottish Tories refuse to cite a benchmark number, they have roughly half a dozen seats they aim to retain and half a dozen they believe are in play.

First the incumbents. Borders stronghold Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, currently occupied by Scotland Office minister John Lamont, is a key seat to retain. Lamont has been the MP since 2017 and his 2019 majority was 5,148. Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, long-time constituency of former Scottish Secretary David Mundell, has been Tory since its creation in 2005 and Mundell is defending a 3,781-vote majority. Nuclear minister Andrew Bowie is standing again in West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, but defending an aching small majority of 843 with the SNP biting at his heels.

Ex-minister David Duguid has held Banff and Buchan since 2017 and hopes to be returned for its replacement seat of Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, where his notional majority is over 2,000. Dumfries and Galloway, seat of outgoing Scottish Secretary Alister Jack, is being contested by John Cooper, a journalist and former special adviser, who will be hoping to build on Jack’s 1,805 majority. Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey succeeds Moray, which is held by Douglas Ross who is not standing for Westminster this time. Local veterinarian Kathleen Robertson will try to wrestle back what is now a notionally SNP seat.

Then there are the battlegrounds where the Scottish Tories aim to topple nationalist MPs. Stephen Kerr, currently a list MSP at Holyrood, is trying his hand at Angus and Perthshire Glens, the successor seat to Angus, a nationalist heartland but one the Tories held between 2017 and 2019. The notional SNP majority is just over 6,000. His Scottish Parliament colleague Sandesh Gulhane, is tackling East Renfrewshire, a middle-class bellwether with an SNP majority over 5,000 that changed hands at each of the last three elections. Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber, which replaces Argyll and Bute, is another target but could prove beyond reach given the decision by former Lib Dem MP Alan Reid to contest the new seat. The SNP has a notional majority just shy of 5,000.

May-era minister Luke Graham hopes to recapture his old Ochil and South Perthshire seat in its latest incarnation as Perth and Kinross-shire but doing so will involve defeating veteran nationalist Pete Wishart, defending a notional majority north of 2,000. Gordon and Buchan, the new name for Gordon, is a straight fight between the Tories and incumbent nationalist Richard Thomson, who finds himself in a much more Conservative-friendly constituency. Meanwhile, Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock is held by the SNP’s Allan Dorans with a 2,000 majority but fell to the Tories in 2017, giving rise to hopes for a blue revival.

Prior to Swinney’s intervention on Matheson, ‘devolved stuff’ was ‘the big issue’ in canvassing sessions, according to my source. This echoes recent polling suggesting the SNP’s record on health and education is finally catching up with it. Anti-independence rhetoric will, predictably, form a key plank of the Tory message, though Swinney has only encouraged this with his pledge that independence will be ‘page one, line one’ of the SNP manifesto.

The Scottish Tories face an uphill battle and can only be dragged down by the Westminster party. If they can wall themselves off from that, and run the election campaign as a referendum on 17 years of the SNP, they could salvage a few of their seats. They might well do better than that.