SCOTTISH National Party campaigners claimed to be making up ground today as the Glasgow East by-election reached its closing stages.
SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon said voters were switching from Labour to her party and the SNP was feeling "extremely optimistic".
"Our support is strong and motivated and it's growing by the day," she told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Sco
tland programme, two days before voters go to the polls.
"We detect in Glasgow East a very strong mood to send a message to Labour – a message that says people are very unhappy with a London Labour Government that is deeply out of touch and is doing absolutely nothing to help individuals with the rising cost of living."
And she claimed: "This is a very close-run election and all of the movement is towards the SNP."
Asked if her party would win, she said: "We are very optimistic and we certainly intend to win."
Ms Sturgeon also defended her party's plans for a local income tax to replace the council tax.
A joint report by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy will today reportedly warn that the SNP's plans for a 3p rate of local income tax to replace the council tax will create a £742 million deficit.
Ms Sturgeon said the report assumed that Scotland would no longer receive the council tax benefit, which would be an "outrageous and unwarranted" state of affairs, and it also ignored extra central government investment.
SNP candidate John Mason will be joined by celebrity supporters and First Minister Alex Salmond.
Braveheart actor James Cosmo and comedienne Elaine C Smith will boost the party's profile with a shopping centre visit.
Labour's campaign today included a visit to a hi-tech employer in Glasgow East with the aim of promoting a positive vision of the area.
Candidate Margaret Curran said: "I will never, ever talk the east end down.
"The people in this community are sick and tired of being talked down – from the Nationalists comparing the area to the Gaza Strip to sneering Tory commentators deliberately ignoring the improvements of recent years.
"Nowhere is this more true than in the case of employment in the area, where local employers are bringing high-skilled jobs to the east end.
"What we need to do is get more people off benefits and into work at places like the one I am visiting today."
Tory activists will canvass voters on the cost of living and crime, while reinforcing their message to reject separatism.
Scottish Tory leader Annabel Goldie said her party was making sure voters realised they did not have to settle for "the failure of Labour or the risk of the SNP".
She also argued that the SNP was soft on law and order.
"The Scottish Government under the SNP does not want to grip the thistle and commit to the new prisons we need," she told Good Morning Scotland.
Liberal Democrat candidate Ian Robertson has cancelled all campaigning activity this morning due to a family emergency.
He had planned to join activists going door-to-door in the constituency.
His spokesman would not comment on the nature of the family emergency.
Voters will go to the polls on Thursday in a constituency made vacant by the resignation of Labour MP David Marshall.
Labour is defending a majority of 13,507 over the SNP.
* Have you got a question for a Glasgow East by-election? Let us ask it for you! Click here to post your questions for the Labour, SNP, Conservative and Lib-Dem candidates, courtesy of our partners at www.yoosk.com. The most voted for queries will be put to the candidates and published here at www.scotsman.com *The full article contains 629 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
