Site icon Inside Croydon

Labour leads in London and offers new role for Scots Nats

insidecroydon

JOHN BRAGGINS scrolls through the polls, so that you don’t have to. Apparently, we’re bored with debate about Scotland, and Labour are to win most of London’s marginal seats

After Thursday’s, polls things seem to have settled down with Populus giving Labour 3per cent lead and YouGov poll in London giving Labour most of the marginal seats – including Croydon Central – with Finchley and Golders Green and Bermondsey too close to call.

The big row over Syria and the awful loss of life crossing the Med rumbles on but I can’t help but think it could be a Milband own goal – the polls on Sunday might tell us more.

Finchley and Golders Green continues to be on a knife-edge – Friday’s Evening Standard’s YouGov London poll says it’s too close to call and judging by the poster seen in a window there, doubt and confusion reigns amongst the voters.

Elsewhere the Survation in Thanet South – or Ramsgate, Broadstairs and Sandwich to you and me – shows UKIP well in front and a quick analysis of the tables shows UKIP’s advantage to be down to men over the age of 55 living in Ramsgate. Women, it seems quite like Labour’s Will Scobie and Sandwich is still Tory. There’s £10,000 well spent.

I return to Scotland’s role in the election today firstly on how it is affecting Labour and secondly how it may affect the SNP. As an issue it seems we’ve become bored with it, of all the election issues, health, education, foreign policy the environment it appears we can’t get enough of them, except for Scotland – the only issue that we’ve heard too much about according to YouGov. So maybe we’ll hear more about the things that affect us like the environment, NHS and education over the remaining couple of weeks and less about deals and the end of civilisation as we know it.

For those of us with an interest in politics north of the border Kenny Farquharson writing in yesterday’s Scotsman suggests that any coalition with Labour in the next parliament will see the SNP become a proud UK Party and not an insular Scottish one, making independence much less likely.

Well worth a read, but to save time here is a summary: “If it comes to pass that Ed Miliband becomes prime Minister thanks to SNP support, my instinct is that it makes independence much less likely. In fact, it could cement Scotland’s place within the United Kingdom. Basically it would make the SNP British. The Nats would be a UK political party in a way they have never had to be before, operating on a British political stage.

“They already have policies for the whole of the UK, as their manifesto launch demonstrated this week. Scotland in general, and the SNP in particular, would be handed a starring role at the very heart of the British state. And this would change fundamentally how we see the Nationalists as a political force, and how they see themselves”.

 


Exit mobile version