Imagine for a moment. It is 8th May, the morning after the night before. Once again, David Cameron has failed to win a majority for the Conservative Party. His Liberal Democrat coalition partners have paid the price for going in to government, and have been slaughtered at the polls. Between them, they cannot form a majority government in the House of Commons. If they're brave, they could try and face the Commons with a Queen's Speech. Either way, Cameron will not survive in government. And so he advises the Queen that she invites Ed Miliband to seek to form a government.
But then what? If opinion polling is anything to go by (and remember, it's not a million years since this howler showed why opinion polling isn't always reliable), then Labour will have suffered an electoral wipeout in Scotland akin to the collapse of the Scottish Conservatives in 1997. Polling currently shows the SNP taking somewhere in the region of 40-50 seats in Scotland, nearly all of them from Labour. Even if they take a 'mere' 25-40, this seriously hampers the chance of a Labour majority government, or even of Labour having more seats than the Tories.
Now, what I think of those polls isn't the issue. But they have dragged the entire election campaign sideways, and now the airwaves and the internet is obsessed by what demands the SNP will extract from a future Labour government, and what Labour will sacrifice in order to get back into power.
I can answer that. The SNP repeatedly say they want nothing from a future Labour government. Oh, it may look like they're demanding more money, or an end to Britain's nuclear weapons, or slowing down the pace of austerity. It sounds like they have demands aplenty, and that Labour will be dragged into promising the Earth. But it seems to me they are actually asking for nothing, and will probably get nothing.
Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader, keeps on saying she will never allow a Tory government to survive at Westminster. That means that the SNP would vote down any attempt by the Tories to remain in government. That would put Labour in power, even if they had fewer votes and seats than the Tories. This sounds like the nightmare scenario for many; a weak Labour government at the mercy of Nationalist demands. But just stop and think for a second. Labour don't have to do what she says, or even pay any attention to it. Why? Because, having put Labour into power, the SNP will be trapped. They can't vote against any Labour ideas, because that will give the Tories a second shot. Scotland doesn't do the Tories. Are the SNP prepared to act in a way which brings them back? No. Labour can carry on as before, safe in the knowledge that the SNP have put them there, and are now stuck supporting them. All talk of policy concessions will vanish when it comes down a choice between a Labour government or a Tory one. The SNP will be a victim of their own success.
But suppose the SNP does use its nuclear option, and votes down Labour on a motion of no confidence. Then what? Even under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, which is supposed to stop Prime Ministers calling an election whenever they like, I cannot see any way a Parliament could carry on if neither of the two largest parties could command the confidence of the House of Commons (technical term for 'get stuff through Parliament'). That would mean a second election, possibly as early as September, certainly way closer than 2020.
Is Ms Sturgeon really willing to fight two elections this year? To go back to the Scottish people, with Labour crying that the SNP have proven they cannot be trusted at the high table of power? Or face voters after bringing down Labour and letting the Tories back in? Either possibility would be catastrophic. Nicola Sturgeon laughed in the debate last week when Ed Miliband reminded her this is what happened in 1979, and the SNP was shattered for 18 years. She'd have done far better to listen.
Even if the Westminster Parliament staggers on, the Scottish Parliament is up for election in 2016. I reckon it would take some explaining if the SNP ran on an anti-Labour platform there, whilst its MPs propped up a Labour government in London. Or even worse for Scots, had allowed the Tories back in. The SNP certainly won't want to fight two elections in 2016; the contradictions between conduct at Westminster and Holyrood would cost the party dearly.
The SNP certainly are on a roll. I reckon they'll take a huge share of the Scottish vote, and a large number of Scotland's seats, on May 7th. But they've started to believe their own propaganda about what they can achieve, and it could yet be their undoing.
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