Judgment day approaches for Labour...

The above quotation comes from Fraser Nelson's cover feature for this week's Spectator.  Next Thursday's elections aren't looking good for Labour.  Sean Fear's predictions can be read here.

Comments

[malcolm]

An SNP triumph in Scotland would be every bit as much of a tragedy for the UK as (another) Labour win. Once again I make the plea for ALL centre right voters in Scotland to vote Conservative rather than seeking to embarrass Labour by voting for the SNP.

[Denis Cooper]

Fairly accurate analysis attributed to John Reid, explaining why there are a disproportionate number of Scots in this Labour government. However if the
Tories hadn't pursued such geographically divisive policies, partly in pursuit of European integration, Scotland wouldn't have become a Labour stronghold and we wouldn't now be facing the possible break-up of the United Kingdom.

[Sean Fear]

At an economic level, Scotland did pretty well from 1979 to 1997.

[Richard]

"Once again I make the plea for ALL centre right voters in Scotland to vote Conservative rather than seeking to embarrass Labour by voting for the SNP."

When exactly did the SNP switch to being a centre right? I recall that until relatively recently it was a left-wing party.

[comstock]

"When exactly did the SNP switch to being a centre right? I recall that until relatively recently it was a left-wing party."

I think that was kinda Malcolm's point, Richard- currently a lot of Scottish Tories vote SNP tactically in certain seats, in much the same way as Tories in England vote LibDem in some areas.

[comstock]

"At an economic level, Scotland did pretty well from 1979 to 1997."

Or, more accurately from 1975 (when the first oil starting coming ashore) to the late 90s (when production peaked)

You can hardly take credit for that :D

[Scott]

I would call myself a natural young conservative, live in Scotland but not a member. I often read these pages, but find the modern arguments on the Union really unconvincing from the Scottish perspective. I will be voting, for the first time ever, SNP this election. I can only hope that after this election the Scots Tories embrace a movement towards fiscal autonomy, their policy on ruling out a any coalition basically means every other party can openly attack them and claim that not a single policy can or will be implemented, no matter how bread and butter they are. I think Annabelle has done really well, but on the current agenda we can only shore up our tired and old dinosaur support.

Old red, white and blue Tories will be voting Tory and would do so no matter what, but traditional business tories who support tories for small government and economic reasons i have found the SNP have really bitten into that chunk of our society.