I have been following the UK election as much as I can given an unusually heavy workload for the time of year. Fortunately the campaign seems to have been pretty dull, so I haven’t missed much—and all the fun will be watching the results come in and finding out what nobody seems to know about the outcome. Most of my following of news is either reading or listening – I don’t watch much. So I miss certain nuances and tend to give politicians the benefit of the doubt when I hear them say things that either seem stupid or are mystifying. So, to get to the point, when I have heard Ed Miliband say that he will not go into coalition or do a deal with the SNP, I have tended to think—well, of course he is saying that to try and scare Scots into voting Labour, but he doesn’t really mean it and, when the time comes, he’ll do what he has to to get power.
But I just watched him on Question Time, and when I see him say it, he really seems to mean it . My first question is: does he really mean it?
One possible outcome is that Labour has the by some distance the most seats of any party, but falls well short of a majority, and can govern successfully in (some sort of) partnership with the SNP. On some possible versions of that, the Tories could not form a majority coalition even with the UUP, the DUP and either the LibDems or UKIP. Second question: Even if Miliband really does mean, now, that he wouldn’t do a deal with the SNP, would he renege on that in such a scenario? Third: What would the political consequences for him be if he did renege?
Please will our UK resident contributors and commenters try to enlighten me?
[Cross-posted at Crooked Timber]
