Via Share the Facts, Nicola Sturgeon’s demands to make Ed Miliband Prime Minister are summarised:
Last night, Nicola Sturgeon confirmed what we already knew: she’s offering to help make Ed Miliband Prime Minister.
The SNP’s list of demands to prop up a weak Labour leader is getting longer – and hardworking taxpayers would pay the price.
The prospect of a Labour/SNP coalition is exceptionally concerning: it would leave our country disarmed, vulnerable economically and liable to break apart, amongst other things.
I would prefer Conservatives won outright on the basis of a strong, positive campaign: we deserve to do so. However, because the five categories of news story are scandal, danger to the community, human interest, novelty and sport ((I forget where I learned this.)), it seems likely we will continue to point out the dangers of Labour.
The Conservative campaign should therefore do more to emphasise the chaos which is likely to originate from the Labour backbenches in the appalling event Ed Miliband is Prime Minister.
On 13 January, I voted with the Government and most of the Parliamentary Labour Party for the Charter for Budget Responsibility, which committed us all to balance the books. As the Chancellor said,
Mr Osborne: It is a totally chaotic and farcical position from the Labour party. It has spent the first two weeks of this year complaining that the Conservative party is cutting too much and promising that it would not cut as much, but now Labour Members are going to troop through the Division Lobby with us in support of a charter that requires £30 billion of fiscal consolidation over the next couple of years. To be fair to the Scottish National party, I think its Members are going to vote against us, as too is the Green party, but Labour Members are sitting there in total silence. They are going to go through the Division Lobby with us to support £30 billion of spending cuts. [Interruption.] Cheer up, it is what the Labour Front-Bench team has asked you to do. It is going to lead the party through the Division Lobby because it does not want to admit to the British people that its plans involve spending more money.
I had the solemn privilege of seeing the looks on the faces of the Labour members who voted for the Charter, a great majority, and hearing their comments in the lobby. It seems to me vanishingly unlikely that the same Labour backbench MPs who just spent five years shrieking about spending cuts will now vote gladly not only to retain most of our changes but to extend them.
Labour are at this point more or less precluded from raising one of the three main taxes meaningfully, so they would have to cut spending while implementing a range of resentful tax rises which would be counterproductive.
A Labour government would be chaos even without the assistance of the SNP. The combination is a truly dreadful thought.
