DANNY Alexander has insisted he will not "be blown out of the water" in his Inverness constituency at the General Election after a poll showed he would lose his seat to the SNP surge.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury suggested voters would recognise as May 7 approached that the Liberal Democrats had been "the rock of stability" on which the economic recovery had been built and that the only people with egg on their faces after polling day would be the pundits.
Asked if he would be blown out of the water by the Nationalists at the election, the MP for Inverness said: "I don't think that's likely to happen."
He explained that there were many electoral battles going on across the country but that he would see off the SNP threat due to a combination of his record, "making sure we have both a strong economy and a fair society, delivering many things for my voters in the Highlands of Scotland", and the threat from the Nationalists to use the election as "a springboard to independence", which many Scottish voters did not want.
Asked about polls suggesting Nick Clegg, himself and other Lib Dem MPs could lose their seats, Mr Alexander replied: "The only people with egg on their faces after the election will be the pundits, who are predicting all these seats being lost.
"As a party we will do a lot better than anyone is forecasting because, of course, when you have a situation where the Conservatives are lurching to the Right, Labour are lurching to the Left, most people want the recovery to continue and have that balance between fairness and economic strength. Only the Liberal Democrats are offering that."
The Treasury Chief declared: "We're the rock of stability on which this recovery has been built over the last five years.
"People will want, as we get closer to the election, to search out that stability and not go for the destabilising effect you would see with a majority Conservative government or a majority Labour government. As we get closer to the election more and more people will see the reason why we have a strong economic recovery is because the Liberal Democrats have been leading economic policy for five years and they want us to continue," he added.
Willie Rennie, the Scottish Lib Dem leader, last week made clear that the party was mounting a Stop the SNP campaign, focusing its electoral battle not on Labour or the Tories but on the Nationalists.
The Ashcroft poll looked at two Lib Dem-held ones, Inverness and Gordon, where Alex Salmond is a candidate, and suggested both would be won by the SNP.
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