Political Battleground - Edinburgh

Unlike Glasgow, Edinburgh did not vote Yes last year, and in the General Election of 2010 the SNP came a poor fourth in the city with a share of the votes cast of a paltry 12.4 per cent. But 2011 was a different story, with five of the six Holyrood seats going Nationalist and only Labour's Malcolm Chisholm weathering the storm in Northern and Leith.

In council elections Labour ended up going into power with second-placed SNP in a coalition, proving nothing is impossible. Tory luminaries such as Alex Fletcher, Michael Ancram, Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Lord James Douglas-Hamilton represented the city as MPs in the recent past, and the late David McLetchie even recaptured a Holyrood seat from Labour, but as in the rest of the country the capital battleground is now between Labour and the SNP.

A significant English element of the population, in particular among students, and a big workforce in the financial sector were seen as factors when more than 61 per cent voted No in the capital last year, but polling suggests that Edinburgh has not been immune to the charms of new SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, with three surveys of Labour-held seats by Lord Ashcroft showing the Nationalists in the lead.

Taking the city's five Westminster seats in a turn around the compass from Edinburgh North and Leith, this constituency has been most like a West of Scotland seat. It had an industrial base including shipbuilding, became a Labour stronghold after the war, and has had during modern times MPs on the Left of the party. The boundary now comes right in to Princes Street so it also encompasses the New Town and Stockbridge, as well as the Granton and Pilton council schemes to the North.

Mark Lazarowicz will hope to follow his Holyrood colleague in bucking the trend but the Ashcroft polling in April offered scant comfort, putting the SNP's Deidre Brock 14 points ahead with potential tactical support unlikely. The combative Tory Ian McGill is unlikely to give up his vote willingly, the LibDem vote has collapsed and the substantial Green vote is likely to stick. The recorded swing in the Ashcroft poll was more than 20 per cent to the SNP.

Edinburgh East is another former Labour bastion and Sheila Gilmour defended this comfortably after Gavin Strang stood down, but the Holyrood seat was taken by Kenny MacAskill and the Westminster seat is now in the sights of the SNP.

Should they win it the new MP will be Tommy Sheppard and the Palace of Westminster will have in its ranks - irony alert! - a comedy impresario. Ulster born, the Aberdeen University graduate became a councillor in London and then moved back to Scotland before a fall-out with Labour saw him leave a senior party position to found The Stand comedy clubs.

Five years ago this reporter covered the Edinburgh South contest as a supposed LibDem-Tory marginal in which I predicted that Labour's Ian Murray might come through as a threat. He won and impressed sufficiently at Westminster that he became a Shadow Trade and Investment Minister.

His background in Wester Hailes gives him Labour kudos and he also has a high profile chairing the Foundation of Hearts group which helped Ann Budge rescue the club. But an Ashcroft poll in late April still had him three points behind the SNP.

Labour have concentrated their effort on attacking SNP candidate Neil Hay for alleged cybernat crimes on the internet, actually fairly mild tweeting and blogging from years ago, rather than on the issues, suggesting they are rattled. It is probably the belwether Edinburgh seat.

In Edinburgh South West, where Alistair Darling is retiring after his time as MP for Edinburgh Central and then in this constituency and Chancellor of the Exchequer, followed by his gruelling stint as head of Better Together last year, the fight is between Labour Councillor Ricky Henderson and QC Joanna Cherry of the SNP.

For the Tories, Gordon Lindhurst insists he is still in the frame in this once-Conservative seat, but Lord Ashcroft suggests otherwise, putting the SNP on an incredible 40 per cent with Labour way back on 27 per cent and the Tories a further eight points behind. The fact that this was once a solid Conservative seat will make the search for tactical anti-SNP votes tougher.

Which leaves the bizarre territory of Edinburgh West. Anthony Stodart held this seat for the Tories for quarter of a century from 1959 before Lord James Douglas-Hamilton took over, before succumbing to tactical voting in 1997 when Donald Gorrie took it for the Liberal Democrats, whose collapse means it is up for grabs by either Labour or the SNP.

As in the case of other seats in the capital the SNP would have to come from fourth place to win it, but this is what they did in 2011 for Holyrood when seeing off the LibDems relatively comfortably and pushing Labour into a disappointing third place.

It still remains vaguely surreal to contemplate Edinburgh as a city about to give itself over to the SNP, but the experience of the last Scottish Parliament Election, coupled with the evidence provided by Lord Ashcroft, makes that a very plausible outcome. Labour clung to one Holyrood seat last time.

It would be no surprise if in either Edinburgh North and Leith or Edinburgh South they repeated the Houdini act this time, but the trend is unmistakeable. The capital appears likely to reject the pleadings from Labour, or the siren call from Tories to return to the fold, and to embrace the SNP as it did at the last Holyrood election.