Labour plus SNP would preside over economic disaster
REMEMBER that glorious day last year when Scotland voted No to independence, the Queen said “an enduring love of Scotland” would unite Britain and smarmy Alex Salmond resigned as Scotland’s First Minister, hopefully never to be seen again?
It was September 19 and incredibly, six months later almost to the day, Scotland the Brave is on the march again with a vengeance. When George Osborne, Chancellor of the United Kingdom, today presents a Budget that will be welcomed by millions of voters, there’ll be a spectre at the feast.
The Ghost of Salmond will haunt the Commons chamber, a grim harbinger of the havoc that lies ahead if the polls are right and the SNP is about to toss a caber in the works. No matter what Osborne plans for the British economy, and no matter how much the majority of us approve of his Budget, the Scottish Nasty Party look set to become a malign political force.
Osborne wants to cut income tax for the squeezed English middle classes? The SNP rump only wants tax cuts for the poor. Osborne wants to cut £30billion from the bloated public spending bill? The SNP will spend £180billion more.
Osborne wants to strengthen our defences? The SNP wants to scrap our nuclear deterrent. Osborne wants to reduce welfare spending by £12billion to encourage more people to work? The SNP wants to hand out billions more. Especially north of the border.
We are just seven weeks away from a nightmare scenario in which a minority party of ultra-Left barmpots and crankies will be able to dictate how the United Kingdom is governed – against the democratic wishes of the rest of us.
Those of us who last summer were more than happy to let Scotland go its own way – at last we’d be rid of their moaning and money-grabbing – never dreamed that the following spring we’d be facing the prospect of that nation’s politicians ruling the roost in Westminster.
Ed Miliband, the worst Labour leader ever, is about to see his party wiped out in Scotland if the polls are correct, with 45 per cent saying they’ll vote SNP and only 25 per cent backing Labour.
Labour would clutch at any straw, pay any price, swallow any poison, to get into Number 10 again
It would mean Labour could lose 40 or more of its seats in Scotland and the SNP would then be able to dictate terms on which it would put Labour into power and keep them there. Pathetically, Miliband refused until Monday to declare that there would be no formal coalition with the SNP.
Problem is, no one believes him. Labour would clutch at any straw, pay any price, swallow any poison, to get into Number 10 again.
The person we can believe is SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, a cold and calculating version of Rob Roy with hairspray.
“I don’t want to see David Cameron re-elected,” she spits. “As long as there are more SNP and Labour MPs than there are Tory MPs, we can lock the Tories out of Government.” Miliband may not see the day when there are SNP ministers in his Cabinet but Nasty Nicola certainly can.
At the very least, the SNP would give parliamentary backing on major votes – at a price of course. Every time their support were needed they would ratchet up their demands and Labour would be helpless, unable to say no. Sturgeon is brutally honest that the SNP’s ambitions extend beyond Scotland.
If they hold the balance of power they will vote on English and Welsh issues in Westminster, even if those votes have little direct effect on Scotland. There can be no doubt most people will be incensed by the way Scotland looks about to be able to hijack Westminster.
A poll in the Guardian yesterday showed that 43 per cent of us are worried about who’ll be running the UK. Many are already sick of the excessive subsidies English taxpayers send over the border. Is it part of Cameron’s overseas aid policy to let Jockistan have even more?
Aside from the money, how much more power will the SNP demand? Scotland already has its own parliament with tax-raising powers, so what else will we be forced to concede? And where do they think all the billions they’d squander would come from?
They claim it’s their North Sea oil but haven’t they noticed the price has plunged by 60 per cent to 50 dollars a barrel? Sturgeon’s vindictive game is obvious. She wants to stir up anti-Union feeling on both sides of the border to force another referendum in Scotland, which she might win.
Her promise that she won’t use a hung Parliament to make another attempt to break up Britain should be taken with a pinch of salt. A fter election day on May 7, we could wake up to a Britain of three political nations: the South and Midlands, largely Conservative; the North and South Wales, largely Labour; and Scotland, overwhelmingly SNP. It will still be a kingdom but hardly a united one.
One good thing that could come of this nightmare is that the Prime Minister may have no choice but to include a real vote-winner in his election manifesto: English votes for English laws.
He promised last November that he’d be taking action, saying the case for this reform is “unanswerable.” The tragedy is that he may have left it too late and the Scottish Nasty Party could well lock him out. If that happens we’ll all have to emigrate. Altogether now: “And I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more...”
