This is in two parts.
I am assuming that the votes cast are roughly as we have been led to believe so that would be a lead for the Conservatives and most of the Scottish seats being SNP. As I see it the democratic response would be that whoever would be able to form a majority will be the party that takes power. As things stand at the moment that would be Labour with the help of the SNP with Plaid the Greens and if necessary the SDLP. That ought to make a working majority and as all these parties have much in common it ought to be fairly easy for them to work together.
However on two points Miliband has allowed Cameron's argument to determine English paper's and hence English public opinion (in the main) without debate. The first is that the party with the most number of seats should win – not so, first chance if they like but the party that should win is the one which looks like it has a working majority. I guess ideally it should have one such as in a coalition. The second area where Miliband has taken on Cameron's position is that it is unconstitutional or dangerous to work with the SNP who they say wish to destroy England. Miliband let go of the idea of forming a coalition with the SNP a long time ago though he had by the way said this before on I think Andrew Marr but he said very strongly a week ago that he would do no deal at all with the SNP and that he would rather the Conservatives remain in power than work with the SNP. If he did not use those words that was indeed what they meant. This has since been argued against by several Labour Ministers. Big question was why did he do something which on the face of it looks like handing the election to the Conservatives before the people of Britain have even voted. Peter Arnott at Bella eventually in a postcript to an article came up with this
The Last Unionists Have Left the Building |
Yesterday we heard first that theLibDems had made a deal with Labour and this was followed with the LibDem's saying they would talk first to the party with the most votes.
If Miliband had got the LibDem's to agree to a coalition with them then it would seem likely that he and the LibDems would have the most votes. This would also go with the LibDems having got a new vigour by their own polls telling them they are in a far better situation that they thought - they found that when they asked if people would vote for a particular candidate rather than just the LibDems that people were far more likely to say yes and now for instance believe they are going to keep all of their eleven seats in Scotland which given they are only polling 5% on the last count looks unlikely. They imagine the same situation in England. Add to that that Labour has looked at the postal votes from Scotland – illegal but they do it and they believe that they may be able to win 11 seats which they have apparently been putting all their effort into. However the guy writing that article said – as long as the turnout is not more that 70% or we are all history. The expected turnout in Scotland is 75% or possibly more. Possibly believing these two things, that the LibDems were going to get a lot more seats and that Labour would be able to keep ten or 12 seats in Scotland allowed Miliband to believe he could manage without the SNP and hence his Question Time Statements concerning it.
I think it is unlikely that there is going to be such a change from what the polls have said which would allow Miliband to come up with a working majority just with the help of the Lib Dems. For anything else Miliband is relying heavily on the SNP sitting quietly and agreeing with everything they say which obviously is not going to happen.
