Constituency profile:

Edinburgh South West

WE’RE in a beer garden in Colinton Village, a few doors from where the Tories used to have a parliamentary office, and SNP candidate Joanna Cherry is fielding questions about how unlikely it seems that she could be taking her party from a poor fourth place five years ago to victory next month.

The Labour candidate has been expressing surprise about a recent poll from Lord Ashcroft putting the SNP clear out in front of Labour in the Edinburgh South West seat being relinquished by Alistair Darling, as this doesn’t match his own party’s canvassing, I say.

Ms Cherry’s eyebrows rise and she suppresses a smile as she looks across the table to her election agent. And the Conservative candidate, I continue, says it’s a two-horse race between him and Labour ... Her eyebrows shoot higher and lips purse to avoid laughing.

The advocate is tough, as you might expect of someone who became one of the country’s first special sex case prosecutors and who has represented the Scottish Government before the UK Supreme Court. But she also has a mischievous streak.

How is she getting on in, say, true blue parts of Balerno? “What they are looking for is a strong articulate MP, someone who is no shrinking violet. In this seat they have a history of voting for high profile lawyers — Malcolm Rifkind, Lynda Clarke, Alistair Darling . . .” I point out that her Conservative opponent, Gordon Lindhurst, is also an advocate. “Ah,” she points out with a twinkle, “but he’s not a QC.”

The recent Ashcroft poll in the constituency put the SNP on an astounding 40 per cent, up from just 12 per cent at the last General Election, Labour at 27 per cent (down from 43 per cent), the Conservatives on 19 per cent (from 25 per cent), the Liberal Democrats on 4 per cent (from 12 per cent) and others on 9 per cent (up from 3 per cent).

None of this is out of line with general polling across the country, nor is it surprising given what happened at the last Holyrood election where one of the shocks of the night was Gordon MacDonald taking Pentlands from the former Tory leader, the late David McLetchie.

All of this points to a tough night for Daniel Farthing-Sykes of the LibDems, Richard Doherty of the Greens and Richard Lucas of Ukip as they contest the scraps and fight to save deposits.

The man with most to lose, specifically the 8447 majority bequeathed by Darling, is veteran Labour councillor Ricky Henderson. After 16 years in the City Chambers he is now convener of the health, social work and housing committee so