Scotland’s first minister took the campaign trail to the north-east to personally back her party’s candidates in two of the most highly-contested seats in Scotland.
Nicola Sturgeon was out knocking knocking on doors in the communities of Garthdee and Stonehaven, where the SNP’s candidates Stephen Flynn and Fergus Mutch are standing for the Aberdeen South and West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine seats respectively.
During her time in Garthdee, the first minister spent some time at the Inchgarth Community Centre with Mr Flynn, where she met a group of ladies playing bingo and helped staff in the café to make a cappuccino for local campaigners.
And on her visit to Stonehaven, the SNP’s leader knocked on doors throughout the community alongside Mr Mutch, before stopping for a cup of tea at the Cool Gourmet café on the High Street, near the seaside town’s harbour.
The two constituencies were among the many wrested from SNP control by the Tories in the 2017 general election, in which the Conservatives won almost every seat in the north-east, with the exception of Aberdeen North.
Speaking to the Press and Journal yesterday, Ms Sturgeon said she believes the residents of Aberdeen South, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine and other regions throughout the north-east are ‘disillusioned’ with the Tories and ready to vote for the SNP once again.
She said: “I’ve been really heartened by the feedback that I’ve received both in Stonehaven and in Aberdeen South.
“There’s a real sense that the fate of our country is at stake, and if we don’t take our future into our own hands then the danger is Boris Johnson, with his strings being pulled by Nigel Farage, will decide that future for us.
“We take nothing for granted. The SNP enjoys the success we have today because we work hard for every vote.
“There’s a real sense of disillusionment with the Tories and that’s something I’ve certainly found up here in the north-east today.”
Mr Flynn, who is also leader of Aberdeen City Council’s SNP group, will be up against Tory candidate and fellow city council group leader Douglas Lumsden, who replaced incumbent Conservative MP Ross Thomson earlier this month as the Tory’s front-runner for Aberdeen South.
Mr Thomson took the seat from the SNP’s Callum McCaig in 2017’s election, with 18,746 votes to 13,994.
He stepped down from running again earlier this month, however, following ongoing allegations of misconduct.
The nationalist’s MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Stuart Donaldson, also lost his seat in the election two years ago to Andrew Bowie, who defeated him by a margin of 24,704 votes to 16,754.
Other high-profile victories of the 2017 general election in the north-east included the Tory’s Colin Clark winning the Gordon constituency from former first minister Alex Salmond.
And in Moray, Douglas Ross defeated the SNP’s deputy leader Angus Robertson.
But yesterday, Ms Sturgeon insisted that, on December 12, the north-east could turn from blue to yellow once again in seats throughout the region.
When asked if she could also recover those two seats, Ms Sturgeon added: “I think we’ve got a good prospect of doing so.
“Scottish Tory MPs could have been wielding their influence on Scotland’s behalf over the past couple of years and they haven’t done so.
“They’ve shown themselves to be simply lobby fodder for Theresa May and now Boris Johnson when communities really need strong MPs to stand up for their interests.
“We’ll be working hard, and there is every reason not to be complacent, but to be optimistic.
“Both Stephen and Fergus are strong candidates who both know the north-east extremely well and I think they will both really stand up for the interests of these constituencies vigorously, and that’s what communities like these need.”
