David Cameron will today insist that only Ruth Davidson can take on the SNP “establishment” in the Holyrood election as the Scottish Conservative leader makes a deeply personal appeal to the Scottish government to back a triple-lock guarantee of NHS funding.
Ms Davidson will talk of her own experiences of the health service — including when it saved her life after she was hit by a truck at the age of five — in a speech to her party conference.
The prime minister will use the same event in Edinburgh to rouse delegates ahead of the election campaign.
Mr Cameron will seek to turn the SNP’s anti-Westminster rhetoric back on itself, describing the party as the establishment which has been in power for nine years. He will accuse them of presiding over a “litany of failure”, highlighting low school achievement levels, reduced college places, declining support for poorer university students and problems over the creation of the single police force.
In a swipe at the government’s controversial named person for children policy, he will say: “Well, I’ll tell you who needs a guardian — someone to keep them in check — it’s the SNP.
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“And it falls to us, the Conservatives, the only party fit to expose these spendthrift, out-of-touch, dogmatic, inept Nationalists for what they really are.”
The Tory campaign for the May election is based around Ms Davidson, who has relatively high approval ratings. She dominates the party’s campaign leaflets and has been splashed across newspaper pages starring in various quirky picture opportunities.
The Tories hope for a resurgence, trading on her popularity as well as their strong performance in the independence referendum. They see themselves as the only alternative to the left-wing politics of the SNP and Labour.
However, two polls this week suggest that hope may be premature. While YouGov, for The Times, put the Tories and Labour neck and neck last month, subsequent research from Survation and TNS has put Ms Davidson’s party resolutely in third place.
She will use her speech at Murrayfield to make a new election pledge on the health service.
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She will also call for the SNP to commit to a new NHS guarantee to ensure spending rises by whatever is highest: inflation, two per cent, or the extra funding coming from Westminster through Barnet consequentials.
The SNP came under fire for its health spending in the referendum debate, with independent think tank research suggesting that it was falling short of England.