A new poll suggests the SNP is still on course to make gains in the General Election as Jim Murphy's leadership of Scottish Labour appears to have so far failed to revive its popularity among voters.
Nicola Sturgeon's party continues to ride high, with 45 per cent of people polled by Survation backing the Nationalists, down one point on a similar survey it conducted last month.
Labour's support was up two points to 28 per cent despite high profile campaigns by Jim Murphy on oil, hospital waiting times and allowing alcohol at football matches.
Ruth Davidson's Scottish Conservatives were up one point on 15 per cent and the Liberal Democrats were on five per cent, down two points on the last Survation poll.
In theory, if the snapshot poll's result was extrapolated out to every Scottish seat on May 7, the SNP would win 47 seats and Labour 10.
John Curtice, Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University, said the survey of more than 1000 adults in Scotland over the past week for the Daily Record showed some signs of Labour progress.
He pointed out the party's polling performance has risen since Mr Murphy became leader in mid-December.
But he added that unless the party showed a sharp improvement they would face heavy losses at the election. Any heavy loss of seats in Scotland would damage Labour leader Ed Miliband's hopes of becoming Prime Minister.
He said: "Progress is not being made by Labour at anything like the speed necessary."
SNP Westminster Leader Angus Robertson said: "This is another excellent poll for the SNP showing that our strong lead over Labour is continuing - but we are taking absolutely nothing for granted, and are working hard for every vote and every seat in May."
Mr Murphy conceded both he and Labour still had a lot of work to do to convince voters.
He said: "This poll shows that Scottish Labour has a big gap to close before the General Election. David Cameron will be rubbing his hands when he sees this poll.
"It's a simple fact that since before the Second World War the largest party has formed the government. The more seats the SNP get from Labour, the more likely it is the Tories will be the biggest party across the UK and David Cameron will get into government through the back door.
"If this poll is repeated on election day then the Tories could win and that's the worst possible outcome for Scotland."
Of voters' 2016 Holyrood voting intentions, the poll found SNP had a 48-28 per cent lead over Labour in the constituencies.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article