David Cameron is too tied-up with the Queen’s birthday celebrations and Barrack Obama’s visit to appear on the Holyrood election trail.
During a visit to Fife Scottish Conservatives’ leader Ruth Davidson confirmed the prime minister would not visit Scotland to beef-up the party’s campaign for second place.
She dismissed suggestions his visits north of the border tended to lead to a slump in polling for the Scottish Tories.
Ms Davidson was one of three party leaders who ventured into Fife yesterday to spread their election messages before the May 5 ballot.
Asked about whether Mr Cameron would make it to Scotland before the election, Ms Davidson said: “The prime minister is slightly busy at the moment.
“He’s got the Queen’s 90th birthday celebrations and he’s also got a state visit from the US president.
“It’s my name on the ballot paper so I will be handling the Scottish election.
“As you can imagine, the SNP and our opponents generally like to do what opponents do and slag us off, but there is no correlation that I can see between any visits and any polling numbers.”
But Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said Mr Cameron not visiting Scotland only created “artificial distance” between the prime minister and Ms Davidson.
He said: “All this means is that David Cameron will phone Ruth Davidson with his instructions instead of giving them to her in person.
“Ruth Davidson backed David Cameron and George Osborne over a Budget that would have taken thousands of pounds from disabled people.
“She has matched them on tax cuts for the richest and cuts to services for everyone else.
“Everyone knows that Ruth Davidson is a fully paid up member of the David Cameron fan club every day of the week. This artificial distance won’t fool anyone.”