Scottish Labour want to hold England to ransom

There have been numerous press stories recently, all claiming the SNP will hold the UK to ransom if they hold the balance of power at Westminster in the likely scenario of a hung parliament.

Ed Miliband and Jim Murphy want us to stop that from happening by voting for Scottish Labour. For example, Jim Murphy in today's Courier says:

"Only Labour can stop the Tories being the largest party. With the Tories and Labour neck and neck in England, in Scotland we should vote Labour to make sure the Tories are not the largest party."

But why should the Scottish Labour tail wag the English Labour dog?

Let's look at current seat projections from a poll of polls:

Tories 283
Lab 271
SNP 47

But if the SNP didn't exist and their predicted seats were all Scottish Labour seats, then the polls would look like:

Tories 283
Lab 318

With Labour clearly in the lead, this would change the whole narrative of the election campaign. It's much easier to vote for a party when you know their miles ahead and thus most other people think they're the best choice.

So if the SNP didn't exist and last year's indyref had never happened, it's likely that Labour would currently have a majority over the Tories of 35 seats. Even the Tory-loving press couldn't spin those numbers away.

Under this scenario, with a little bit more work, Ed Miliband could easily gain an overall majority and cruise into 10 Downing Street on the coattails of Scottish Labour.

But would it be morally acceptable to have Scottish Labour hold the UK to ransom in this way?

Once you start going down the path of saying some Scottish votes shouldn't decide who governs England, then you have to extend that moral outrage to all Scottish votes. And once you do that, you've effectively become a supporter of either a federal Britain or of Scottish independence.

But the morality is clear - if the SNP aren't allowed to dictate who wins, Scottish Labour aren't allowed to either.

Let's see if Jim Murphy will stand up and publicly say that.