SCOTS should follow their hearts and vote Conservative, Michael Gove, the Tory Chief Whip, has insisted, predicting that the Conservatives will win more seats in Scotland than Labour.

Outside Westminster, the Aberdeen-raised politician was on hand for a Conservative HQ photo opportunity of 50 party activists all clad in SNP T-shirts and wearing Nicola Sturgeon face masks; raising the prospect about a Miliband government propped up by the "fearsome fifty" group of Nationalist MPs.

Mr Gove, who is contesting a seat in Surrey, declined to be photographed with the group of Tory activists, saying if he did so it would "dilute the powerful message that we face the real danger in six days' time of Ed Miliband being propped up by the SNP and our government therefore hanging by a thread".

The Tory frontbencher denied the photo op was a crude piece of negative campaigning. "This is not a negative stunt," declared Mr Gove. "This is a vivid, visual metaphor of the chaos that would ensue if we have a weak prime minister at the head of a minority Labour government held hostage by the SNP."

Insisting the Conservatives would do better than the Labour Opposition, the Scot declined to say which seats his party would win, saying: "It would be wrong of me to alert the SNP, the Liberal Democrats and Labour to our highly effective ground operation.

"I won't predict anything more; other than to say, if people follow their hearts and vote Conservative in Scotland, as in the rest of the UK, we can pick up and win seats from every other party."

Labour had 40 Scottish seats and the Tories one in the last Westminster Parliament. The latest psephological analysis suggests the SNP could win all 59 constituencies in Scotland next Thursday.