Will Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP be facing a similar balancing act on 8 May?I’m going literal today, with an actual picture. But what a gift for political headline writers and omen-spotters. Will Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP be facing a similar balancing act on 8 May? Related: The triumph of Nicola Sturgeon | Ian Jack Take the ‘right’ of SNP MPs to vote in the Commons, or the supposed lack of legitimacy that stems from it. No one who purports to be a unionist can question it. They have the right.That’s why we fought and won the referendum: to enshrine the rights of Scots to go on sending representatives, fully equal to every other, to Westminster. Glib and lazy talk about SNP MPs somehow not being as entitled to vote in every division in the Commons as any other British MP simply fuels nationalist paranoia.If you want political excitement, go to Greece. If you want more showbiz in this election, go to Hollywood.Here and now in the UK I’m focused on something real. A stronger economy – something that excites millions more: more jobs, more homes, more business, more childcare, more security in retirement.UK. Failure to win majority against either Brown in crisis or Miliband would mean chop for Cameron. Open talk today in party and press. Related: Election 2015: The Guardian poll projection one of the boldest policy announcements of the election campaign, designed to steal David Cameron’s thunder We run small businesses right across the country. We work hard, make sacrifices and invest our own money to help our businesses grow and succeed. It was tough during the recession, but we kept going.This Conservative-led government has been genuinely committed to making sure Britain is open for business. They’ve managed to get the economy moving again by tackling the deficit, helping to keep interest rates low and inflation down.The immorality of homes becoming sterile investments takes us straight to the other big fault line: rising inequality and stalled social mobility. The two are linked, because if you must cling precariously to the home base you have — rented or mortgaged, council or private — it reduces your ability to move, change, re-educate yourself and leave a dead-end job and rock the financial boat with a small enterprise.Cameron is right to hold his nerve. He does not need every single beneficiary of the recovery to vote for him. He just requires a sufficiency of pencils to hover for long enough in the polling booth, as voters decide, at the only moment that matters, that this is no time for a change.Why panic when such an outcome remains possible – plausible, even? Continue reading...
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