It's time to bring it into the open - we're in the era of NATIONAL tactical voting

During the indyref, we were told that the UK is a "family of four nations" and that we should stay a part of that family and work with it. The seven-way leaders' debate showed that the broadcasters only cared for three out of that family of four (Northern Ireland was excluded), and that was only after sustained pressure was put upon them to include the smaller parties.

However, the debates have opened up a new possibility: national tactical voting. That is, nations getting together and voting tactically. We already have constituency-based tactical voting, for example Willie Rennie asking Tory and Labour voters in the Gordon constituency to instead vote Lib Dem to keep Alex Salmond out.

But national tactical voting is a little different. Even though I'm voting SNP, I'd like to see Ed Miliband as Prime Minister. However, I don't want Scotland's voice to be weakened by having it divided into a nano-squeak by being spread out over four or five different parties. So I'm definitely voting SNP.

But I'd also love to see Leanne Woods' Plaid Cmyru succeed in Wales and have a Labour-SNP-Plaid alliance in power in Westminster.

So here is the national tactical voting plan:

1. if you live in Scotland, vote SNP
2. if you live in Wales, vote Plaid Cymru
3. if you live in England, vote Labour

The Greens, of course, upset the apple cart a little. I'd also like to see the Greens in this alliance as well. So perhaps the final part of the national tactical voting plan should be:

• if you can't bring yourself to vote for the party in the national tactical voting plan, then vote Green

I'm sure Northern Ireland would like to play a part in our national tactical voting strategy too but, alas!, my knowledge of the Northern Irish political scene is lacking. Perhaps someone from there could tell me how they think the last member of our family of four nations should vote.

With this national tactical voting strategy, we could easily keep the Tories out and give each of our respective nations the voice it deserves to have within the English-dominated system at Westminster. Perhaps then we'd finally have a parliamentary system that actually represented our "family of four nations."