Moray is a tricky conundrum for the Nationalists’ election campaigners

“That’s what worries me,” she confided. “If anyone had to pay what it costs us to produce beef, they wouldn’t be able to afford it through the supermarkets if we weren’t receiving subsidies. Sheep too: the feed, the amount of time we put in. We would be working at a loss.”

This is Scotland’s beautiful northeast, where more than half its malt whisky distilleries shelter under the Cairngorm mountains. Lower down the glens, the lush pastures of Aberdeenshire and Moray are a bread basket for Britain; boats from harbours along its coast for centuries harvested the riches of the sea.

The politics reflect the national picture. Across five constituencies in the region, the SNP holds sway in two, according to the bookies. But in affluent West Aberdeenshire & Kincardine, the Tories are likely to reclaim a Royal Deeside seat they lost in the wipe-out of 1997. If Alex Salmond, the former first minister, is likely to survive in Gordon, Angus Robertson, right, the party’s leader at Westminster, is threatened by the rising blue tide in Moray.

Mrs Lawson has not decided which party will get her vote, but she knows it won’t be the SNP. “Because,” she said, “I am sick of them pushing for another referendum.”

Along the byways of Aberdeenshire, Banff and Moray this is a common theme. Even SNP voters say the tempo of the party’s campaign is wrong.

Willie Simpson, a retired farmer, says Nicola Sturgeon made an error when she put a second referendum at the centre of her party’s pitch for support. Her reward will be “a bloody nose”. Mr Simpson’s father was a farm manager, and he has lived among “the blue boys” of Conservatism all his life. “They are hard to beat,” he warned. “I’ve always wanted independence, but she [Ms Sturgeon] is going the wrong way about it. She was wrong to call the referendum, it’s too up front for now.”

Education too is playing on minds. Twenty miles west, mothers in Aberlour village are worried about falling standards. Carolyn Rattray, 41, has three sons. “Our children are growing up in a global workplace,” she said. “They are not competing with kids from the next town, they are competing with kids, say from India, if they are in IT. My ten-year-old wants to be a design engineer. He will be taking on kids from all over the world.”

The government, she said, should concentrate on things that matter, such as “stability, teacher numbers, funding for the schools.” She’s inclined to vote Conservative.

Erica Morton, 45, who runs her own de-cluttering business, said politicians who achieve power are offered choices. In 2007, the SNP chose a council tax freeze: that meant people had more money in their pockets for bigger cars and televisions, but there was less in the pot for education.

“The SNP wanted to win votes, but it has slapped us all in the face,” said Mrs Morton, a mother of two. “I’ll vote Conservative for all of those reasons, but also to say to her ‘No, I don’t want another referendum.’”

Aberlour is in Moray, a seat that fascinates the pollsters. During the EU referendum the majority for Brexit was 122 votes on a turnout of 24,114.

Ironically, the Remain vote — promoted by the SNP — was strongest in the farming communities where the Tories are making headway. By the sea, the former fishing communities — apparently the bedrock of SNP support — voted Leave, angered by perceived failures of the CFP (Common Fisheries Policy).

For the small army of SNP volunteers there is occasionally a tricky conundrum to resolve. Some voters combine a disdain for EU policy with a scepticism about how an independent Scotland could negotiate a better deal with Brussels, than has ever been achieved by the UK.

It can make for an interesting discussion on the doorstep, admitted Kevin McKay, 53, an offshore worker, and staunch SNP volunteer, as he tramped around a housing scheme on the edge of Buckie.

“The older fisherman know what went on in the past,” Mr McKay said. “But younger people seem to think the EU ruined the fishing industry. The fact is, the Tories sold out the fishing industry decades ago.”

There seem to be plenty who endorse the party line. Like Adam Chisholm, 40, who works in Tesco, they come out into the street to shake hands with the SNP candidate. Others though, stand muttering in their driveways, as Mr Robertson’s team wanders along.

The maths seem to point to his eventual triumph. Even if Douglas Ross, his Conservative rival, absorbed all the Labour and Lib Dem votes from 2015, he would still trail the SNP. But there is an anxiety about the nationalists’ campaign because of a phenomenon seen in Moray and elsewhere: the “Tartan Tory,” a species of voter who can flip from SNP yellow to Tory blue.

Back at the auction house in Huntly, Sandy Reid, a businessman and farmer, reveals himself to be just such a person.

Mr Reid, 74, is a lifelong SNP voter who feels the current SNP leadership pales against the redoubtable Winnie Ewing, and Margaret, her daughter, both former MPs in Moray.

“Winnie and Margaret Ewing were real MPs, they wanted to see a prosperous Scotland,” Mr Reid said. “Sturgeon and the rest don’t want anything like that. They are only there for their own glory. They know if they got independence and it didn’t work, they could step aside. But the damage would be done.

“The SNP are not prepared to wait and see what Brexit will do. It might be better. I doubt it, but we have to see what happens first.”

Mr Reid lives near Elgin, where none of his friends in farming will vote SNP this time, though they did in 2015. “It has turned around in Moray in two years,” Mr Reid said decisively. “I’ll vote Conservative. Robertson will be out, or he will scrape in by the skin of his teeth.”