Lib Dem leader not a hit in own constituency
Jo Swinson kicked off her election campaign with the bold ambition of sweeping into No10 by Christmas.
But falling poll ratings have left constituents openly questioning whether the Lib Dem leader will be an MP, never mind PM, come December 13.
Swinson endured another hellish week in which her party was rocked by claims it produced misleading barcharts and fake newspapers.
And when the Sunday Mail visited her home town of Milngavie, in her East Dunbartonshire constituency, we found voters reluctant to offer their backing.
Dad Darren Woodlock, 44, a civil servant from the town, said: “This is the first election of my life where I’m genuinely considering spoiling my ballot paper because I have no confidencein any of the parties.
“My six-year-old daughter Daisy is my main concern and I just don’t have confidence that any of the candidates are going to deliver a better future for her.
“Jo Swinson has abandoned all local issues to focus on this one big thing – Brexit. But she’s someone who voted with the Tories for years in coalition and is now turning around and decrying them. That doesn’t give me confidence that this is a person of integrity who I can trust.
“The SNP are talking a lot of nonsense. I’ve nothing against the principle of independence but, as a party, they’ve not convinced me that they have anything new to bring to the table.
“I’m traditionally a Labour voter but the party just seems to be in chaos. More than anything, I want to see Boris out. I think he led people up the garden path with ridiculous claims on the side of a bus. Brexit is a complete sham that was all about pushing false ideas about immigration and I think the Tory manifesto is based on lies.”
Swinson has aligned her party behind a central pledge to cancel Brexit if it wins a majority in Parliament. But hairdresser Elaine Fleming, 55, also said she was unlikely to support Swinson.
The mum of two, who has run a salon in Milngavie for 27 years, said: “I’m undecided because all the parties are pretty awful and I’m finding that’s the opinion many of my customers, too.
“Jo is smart but the Lib
Dems have a big say in the running of East Dunbartonshire Council and I can’t say I’m very impressed by the job they’re doing. So I don’t think I’d trust them to run the country.
“I wouldn’t vote for Boris either – he needs a boot up the backside. I think he needs a decent haircut, too. I’d give him a haircut but I wouldn’t give him my vote.
“When I was younger, I was a fan of the SNP but you get older, you have children and you begin to realise that it just isn’t a risk worth taking. I don’t think we produce enough in Scotland. I don’t think that we have a strong enough economy. I don’t think that we have the industrial base because Margaret Thatcher took it all away. I’m not a fan of Brexit.
We should stay in the UK and in Europe and I wish there was someone I believed in to take us forward in a sensible way. But I don’t know who that is.”
The SNP has made East Dunbartonshire a key target, with its candidate Amy
Callaghan determined to overthrow Swinson’s 5339 majority by highlighting her years in coalition with the Tories.
The Lib Dems won the seat from the SNP’s John Nicolson in 2017. But mum-of-four and granof-seven Joanne Cranston, 63, a retired nurse from Milngavie, said: “I’m not a big Jo Swinson fan. I think she comes across like a headteacher lecturing people on what they should think.
“My biggest concern is education and what’s happening in Scotland’s schools. When I had my own children, I’d been living in England and I moved back to Scotland because the schools were always much better here. But that isn’t the case now. The Curriculum for Excellence has been a disaster.
“Jeremy Corbyn scares me – he would bankrupt the country.
“I’ll be voting for the Tories because they’re the only ones who have sensible policies and I think Brexit needs to be done because we had a vote that needs to be respected.”
Mum-of-two Nisha Sekhon, 60, a catering assistant from nearby Bearsden, said: “It’s between the SNP and Labour and I think I’m coming down for Labour after what they’ve said about giving compensation to women hit by the increase in the retirement age. I don’t believe Jo Swinson will do what she says. She’s loud and doesn’t seem to think before she speaks.”
John Airdrie, 54, a Big Issue seller on Milngavie’s village precinct, was the only Swinson fan we interviewed.
He said: “I’d vote for Jo because she has been down on the precinct and spoken to me a few times. I liked her.”
But Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour jumped five points to 33 per cent, while the Lib Dems dropped five to 13 per cent.
The Brexit Party were found to have gained one point with four per cent.
It is the latest of several surveys to show a tightening of the race.
BMG polled 1630 British voters online between November 27 and 29, before the London terror attack on Friday. However, a separate poll put Johnson’s lead over Labour at 10 points. The Savanta ComRes poll for the Sunday Telegraph had Labour at 33 per cent but the Tories on 43 per cent and Lib Dems 13 per cent.
Meanwhile, the BBC has U-turned on a decision not to allow Johnson to be interviewed on today’s Andrew Marr Show.
The Corporation had told the Prime M i n i s t e r he w ou l d n’ t be al lowed on the programme until he agreed to a pre-election grilling by Andrew Neil.
But producers cited the terror incident as their reason for reversing the decision. A statement said: “As the national public service broadcaster, the BBC’s first priority must be its audience.
“In the wake of a major terrorist incident, we believe it is now in the public interest that the PM should be interviewed on our f lagship Sunday political programme.
“All parties’ election policy proposals must – and will – face detailed scrutiny from us and we continue to urge Boris Johnson to take part in the prime-time Andrew Neil interview as other leaders have done.”
However, the decision has been heavily criticised. Labour candidate and former culture secretary Ben