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In her parliamentary constituency Jo Swinson appears to be living up to her reputation as the “Marmite candidate” – if no one loved Marmite.

The forthcoming election will be the ultimate test of the Liberal Democrat leader’s theory you don’t have to be popular to succeed in politics.

An Ipsos Mori poll published on Wednesday showed 50 per cent of the electorate were “unfavourable” towards Swinson and the more they see of her, the less they like her.

In her East Dunbartonshire constituency, there is a simmering resentment that she has prioritised her prime ministerial ambitions over the needs of the community.

(Image: DAILY RECORD)

Polls show she now has a lead of only four per cent over the SNP and her zeal for the top job may well see her voted out.

The nationalists are hoping to wrestle the seat back from Swinson, who won it from the SNP’s John Nicolson in 2017 with a 5339 majority,

Some voters now feel she is more elusive in her constituency than the endangered hedgehogs she lamented on the climate debate.

Her failure to show up last month at a hustings in the local baptist church in Kirkintilloch led to her being dubbed the pop-up MP by her rival, SNP candidate Amy Callaghan.

“She ran from scrutiny”, said accountant graduate James Mills, 27, who like Swinson has grown up in East Dunbartonshire’s Milngavie.

“There were people there who wanted to grill her, to ask her about serious concerns, like the austerity measures she voted for in the Lib Dems’ coalition with the Tories .

“Jo Swinson is pretty awful. She didn’t care at all when she was voting with the Tories to slash welfare benefits . She is focused on Westminster and her own agenda, not on her constituency. She has set her sights high but that career over principle approach will bring her crashing down. She says Boris is all about Boris but it is also true that Jo is all about Jo.”

(Image: DAILY RECORD)

James will vote for Callaghan, who he believes when she says “I want to be on the ground, in the constituency, where people can look me in the eye and I can deal with what matters to them.”

Another sore point has been Swinson’s enthusiastic affirmative when asked on TV whether she would press the nuclear button if she was PM.

Her unwavering response has gone down like radiation sickness in an area well within the fallout of any potential accident or attack at the Faslane nuclear base housing the £200billion deadweight of Trident .

Her casual regard for mass murder put the tin hat on any a celebrity endorsement from local girl and singer Amy MacDonald .

She tweeted: “Swinson has been my MP for pretty much my entire voting life. She has been a charlatan the entire time.

“It took her one second to say that she’d happily drop nuclear weapons. Imagine voting for her.”

Retired post office worker, George McLean, 72, cites the SNP’s anti-nuclear policy as one reason he will be voting for the party this election.

He said:”For me it’s not about personalities and kissing babies and all about policies. Trident is an abomination, nuclear bombs are Armageddon. The SNP don’t want them and I don’t either. I am still dubious about IndyRef 2 but I won’t vote for Swinson because I am anti-nuclear and anti-austerity and she voted for austerity with the Tories and would happily press the nuclear button.”

Swinson has accused Corbyn of trying to rehash ideas from a bygone era but the past is a hostile land for a Lib Dem whose principled stands have the consistency of a traffic light.

She voted more with the Tory whip than Michael Gove when in the 2010 coalition government, and for Swinson it was green for go on welfare cuts, the bedroom tax and trebling tuition fees – a humiliating U-turn on the Lib Dems’ key manifesto promise to abolish them.

Retired carer Dealena Harkin, 61, from Milngavie, says she has seen first hand the suffering from welfare cuts in the town, where pockets of deprivation hide behind its gentrified veneer.

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She said: “I have no trust in her, she has betrayed poor people. She says she is a feminist but what about the women struggling on nothing. She is so fake it offends me.”

Fakery has been a by-word for the mountain of leaflets the Lib Dems have shoved through local doors including one mass-produced, “handwritten” Dear Friend letter from Jo and a dummy newspaper.

The Scottish left-wing podcast group Ungagged did their own “fake handwritten letter” listing her U-turns and voting record and are popping it through the doors.

One Ungagged supporter, Neil Scott, 53, a primary teacher who lives in Milngavie but works in a school in an area of deprivation in Glasgow, prefers the Labour manifesto but will vote SNP because, although not a nationalist, he believes independence is “a step towards a more equitable society”.

He said: “I see children turn up hungry to school and families on the edge of a precipice they have been pushed to by welfare cuts. Swinson’s ego trip in the dark days of the coalition cost lives, smashing the system that gave people hope and a hand when they’d fallen on hard times.”

(Image: DAILY RECORD)

Across the constituency in the poorer Kirkintilloch, her support of welfare cuts hit hard, hence the need for a food bank in the church where Swinson was a no-show at the hustings.

But at the bottom of the high street in a cosy yarn shop, Sealy MacWheely, the owner Katie Seal, 29 said she is torn on who to vote for.

So could she be the lesser spotted Lib Dem? It would seem unlikely.

She said:”I am originally from England and I was a student when the Liberal Democrats shafted us over tuition fees, I have lived under austerity my entire life and I can’t stand nuclear weapons.”

But she added that Swinson did pop in and support her shop for a photo op and seemed nice enough.

Which was about as ringing an endorsement as I could find on a chilly day in East Dunbartonshire.