Labour’s Ed Miliband plays down polls predicting wipeout in Scotland
Party could lose 90 per cent of seats in election next year as support for pro-independence rival surges, but leader plays down threat
Ed Miliband, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, has brushed off opinion polls indicating its support is collapsing in Scotland, for long its stronghold, ahead of next year's general election.
"We face a tough fight but no tougher than the fights we have faced in the past," Miliband told a Labour dinner in Glasgow.
An Ipsos Mori survey shows Labour could lose up to 90 per cent of its legislators in the region to the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) when voters go to the polls in May, which would all but end Miliband's chances of beating Conservative leader David Cameron to become Britain's prime minister.
The Scottish Ipsos Mori poll of 1,029 voters found the SNP now had 52 per cent support compared to Labour's 23 per cent, meaning the SNP would take 54 seats and Labour just four.
A YouGov poll also indicates Labour representatives in Scotland could drop to four from 41.
Another Ipsos Mori poll shows that Britain's National Health Service (NHS) has overtaken the economy on a voters' list of important issues.