Was there ever a sign so blatant that British politics has become a binary exchange between two parties who are simply flavours of the same political class, the same political attitudes and the same corporate policies. Former Tory Chairman Lord Baker has said that in order to keep the unity of the United Kingdom intact the Tory party should be prepared to enter into a coalition with the Labour party in order to block an SNP party that finds itself holding the balance of power. Well well. What do you say to that. A former party chairman who should have his finger on the pulse so to speak, or given that he’s a Tory should that be fangs on the neck. But here he is saying Labour and the Tories should form a coalition. Not the first time it’s been said, probably not the last time. The Tories are clearly running scared of the election, are there enough people stupid enough to believe their lies a second time, are their enough people who hate and fear a labour government more than they hate and fear a Tory one? The Tories are not sure, the polls are looking balanced with no-one in a majority. Cameron is harping on about Miliband publicly ruling out an alliance with the SNP, given the current landslide north of the border a solid block of 50 SNP members of parliament would swing the balance of power in favour of labour. After all it’s not likely that the SNP will work with the Tories, though if they are ice skating in hell the day after election day it’s not my fault! Labour north of the border is very unpopular but given the choice between saving a drowning Tory government and a drowning Labour government I see the SNP sitting down to bargain with Labour to get a very good deal for rent of the rope while at the same time throwing rocks at the Tories and taking bets on how long till they go under. Nuclear disarmament is something that resonates strongly with the SNP and Labour, the upwards of £20 billion required to upgrade Trident over the next parliament is extremely hard to justify when compared to the tens of billions of austerity cuts that are causing such suffering. Outside of this single cause there are plenty of areas that the two parties could agree on or seek to compromise on. After they came close in the vote last year and with the polls showing them looking at an utter takeover in Scotland everyone is doing the MP dance, its where you run around in circles shouting random things which are the opposite of the random things you shouted 30 seconds ago. Regardless of which party wins or ends up in a collation. The SNP are going to be playing king maker in the next parliament, they will be in an odd position. If they leave the Union as they claim they wish to they will end up worse off than if they remain in the union but grab ever increasing self rule and economic funding under the threat of leaving. The Tories are openly terrified by this, Labour are less concerned, at least openly anyway. All the austerity, all the oppression, the cruelty, the return to Dickensian social order that the Tories are working so hard to achieve would be undermined by the SNP and Labour having enough MPs to outvote the Tories. Hence Cameron’s demands that Labour rule out such an alliance. Which is a bit rich, it has to be said, coming from the man who climbed into bed with Clegg. Though given how fast the Lib Dems threw out just about every long held policy and manifesto point. Is a Tory Labour alliance so impossible, well no its not. Actually given that the front benches of both parties are packed full of pragmatic, deal doing, self serving scum who have happily ignored many votes or voted in favour of clearly unpopular measures to support each other I don’t see the two working together to keep themselves in power and supping at the trough for another five years impossible. Look back over the last few years and count how many in Labour have actively opposed or voted against Tory / Lib Dem measures such as austerity, bedroom tax, DRIP etc. Outside of a handful of old school labour MPs the majority seem happy to go along with their hated enemy in vote after vote. So if it comes down to an alliance with the enemy or an alliance with the enemy it is a matter of who do you hate and fear the least. Note that I’m talking about Labour, the Tories and the SNP here, the Lib Dems are hardly going to be in a position to throw any weight around after May. Still I could be wrong here; the Lib Dems could do well and they could be ice skating in hell on the 8th of May. But what about that Tory Labour alliance to keep the SNP out? Is it so unlikely, is it impossible? If it keeps them in power our political parties will sell their own grandmothers if the price is right. |
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