Lib Dems ‘conf ident of winning 6 Scottish seats’
SENIOR Liberal Democrats are plotting to recapture a string of Scottish seats from the SNP.
Buoyed by success in last year’s Holyrood elections, the party believes it can win five or six seats in June.
Former UK leader Sir Menzies Campbell said: ‘In all those seats that were taken from the Lib Dems, the incumbent MP should be well aware that Lib Dems are coming for them.’
Edinburgh West is the top target. Held by the party until 2015, the Lib Dems hope to benefit from the scandal surrounding Michelle Thomson MP, who quit the SNP whip over a police probe into mortgage deals. She has been told she has no case to answer, but SNP chiefs have not invited her back into the party.
Other targets include East Dunbartonshire and Argyll and Bute, where former MPs Jo Swinson and Alan Reid plan to stand again.
Sources also see Charles Kennedy’s former seat of Ross, Skye and Lochaber as one they can win.
The former Lib Dem leader, who died in June 2015, was hounded by a hate campaign both before and after the election, and clashed with SNP rival Ian Blackford.
The Lib Dems will attack the SNP’s record in government at Holyrood. Sir Menzies said: ‘The sad fact is that, both south and north of the Border, health and education face severe pressures, which neither the UK government nor the Scottish Government are able to do anything about.’