The SNP can win Labour’s safest seat in Scotland, the Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency vacated by Gordon Brown, according to Nicola Sturgeon.
The First Minister and her party deputy, Stewart Hosie, have made high-profile visits to Fife after a Lord Ashcroft poll put their candidate, Roger Mullin ahead of Labour councillor Kenny Selbie in the race to Westminster.
The research caused shockwaves across Scotland, since Mr Brown commanded a 23,000 majority at the 2010 election. However, in an interview with The Courier Ms Sturgeon refused to talk down soaring expectations for her party as she said no part of the country or constituency was “off limits for the SNP.”
She added: “Courier Country, if I can call it that, is in some ways Scotland in a microcosm the mix of urban and rural. If we can turn Courier Country SNP then we will be on our way to winning Scotland.
“So seats like Kirkcaldy, obviously we are already strong in Dundee but we’re looking to take the other Dundee seat these will be big, big victories for the SNP enabling us to make Scotland’s voice heard.”
Polls have shown the SNP could win upwards of 50 seats, with some senior figures fearing that expectations are too high given there are only six MPs.
However, Ms Sturgeon said she rejected the “traditional political wisdom” of underplaying expectations to over-achieve as it wasn’t “realistic”.
She said: “For me to have spent time over the last few months trying to manage expectations would have been like banging my head off a brick wall but what I’ve tried to do internally is make sure the polls are not turning our heads or breeding any sense of complacency at all.”