Dr David Montgomery (pictured) will fight the Conservative’s corner after being selected to stand in East Renfrewshire. The 39-year-old doctor says his General Election campaign is well under way as he aims to win support ahead of May 7.

Dr Montgomery is convinced the fact he grew up in Dumbarton will help his bid to win East Renfrewshire back from the Labour Party.

He said: “I come from a reasonably working class, aspirational family in Dumbarton, and my grandparents spent their working lives in factories in and around Dumbarton and my mum was a teacher, my dad a civil servant working for the national savings bank in Cowglen.

“As I went through school we achieved more and more as a result of what governments had put in place that allowed us to take our working class Dumbartonian background and create opportunities.

“In that time my family had progressed really well, and eventually I went to Bearsden Academy and the medical school in Glasgow, and I was very fortunate that the opportunities were in place throughout the late 80s and early 90s that facilitated that happening.” That, of course, was when the “Right to Buy” scheme implemented by Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government was in full swing. This allowed council house tenants to buy their homes outright and take out mortgages rather than remaining council tenants.

Dr Montgomery says that his experience in the NHS gives him a unique insight into its day-to-day running.

He said: “About seven years ago I left the NHS and I am now the national medical director for Pfizer Oncology. It has been a really interesting and useful insight into the NHS and how it interacts with private organisations and how business works and how industry works.” Dr Montgomery is married to Catherine, a consultant surgeon at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, and has two children, Michael, seven, and Sophia, five.

And Dr Montgomery argues that a Conservative prime minister is the only way to continue the UK’s recovery from recession, and grow the economy.

He added: “We have created almost 1,000 new jobs a day since 2010 but not everyone is feeling the benefits of that recovery and that is something that we must enshrine on the path that we are on.

That will be my big push, and having worked in industry I have a good idea of how business and employment works.” He also hopes to capitalise on the number of voters in Barrhead who have become “disillusioned” with Labour.

He said: “There has always been a huge tradition of voting Labour in Scotland because that’s what you did. But if they really thought hard about it they would realise that the party that has fought to give them jobs and opportunities and get people out of welfare dependency and into work that pays has been the Conservative Party.

“And I am trying to convince people of all colours that we have a strong plan for getting the recovery really cemented and growing the economy.

“My view is Labour are likely to lurch further and further to the left, and when that happened the last time it resulted in near bankruptcy in 2007 and 2008. We do not want to go back to that.”