After a week of disgrace for Nicola Sturgeon's SNP that saw activists encouraged to film and harass Labour canvassers and the heavily SNP linked Wings over Scotland website make allegations about an NHS nurse that caused her personal harm and attacked her credibility, one would forgive the SNP leader for wanting a quiet few days without being in the news for the wrong reasons. It would have cheered her that a TNS poll put her party in a strong position once again- it is clear that the nationalist vote is still solid. But for what cause exactly? As one of our blogs covered earlier this week, there is little Sturgeon can offer to her party even if they do hold the balance of power in May. Indeed, a deal with Labour (who have not yet conclusively ruled it out, and are the only party with which the Nats will do business) may harm her party rather than enhance it. The 'toxic' image that Labour has among ardent, narrow minded Nats will not shift easily; Sturgeon would be well advised to pause and reflect before doing a deal with the 'Red Tories'.
We will be able to tell if she is going to do so or not as the election gets nearer. If she cools the attacks on Labour and starts bashing the (blue) Tories and the coalition in general, then it is clear that she is moving towards the lucrative idea of Government. Tactically, this would be the way to go- she won't win over soft Labour voters by slagging off the party that they normally vote for in the nasty and petulant way her party has so far. Instead, pitching her party as a way to stop the Conservatives, though cheap, is an easy way to gain votes and also form common ground with Labour.
However, even the idea of holding power at Westminster cannot save Sturgeon from the inevitable demands of her supporters- two or three years into a deal with Milliband, some will ask; what about independence? Unless it is handled with kid gloves, doing a deal at Westminster could cause harm to the SNP and fracture it badly.
The other option is that Sturgeon cools talk of deals and keeps up the attacks on Murphy and his party. At the end of the day, Sturgeon couldn't care less about Trident or any other emotive issue raised by her party. They are only campaign tactics, little more. From this point of view it suits the SNP to leave Trident in place and not use their influence at Westminster for good. If trident did go, then it would no longer be a gripe or an issue the SNP can hold onto. Privately, Sturgeon is longing for our Nuclear weapons to stay in place. On this and other issues her party will not actually want to achieve change.
With just over two months to go, the SNP will start moving on the issue of coalition. Either they will start softening on Labour and finding common ground, while bashing the Tories. Or they will continue to be a protest movement, and attack Labour as fiercely as they have done in recent months. We suspect it will be the latter; the party would be weakened by the burden of office and the image of working with a unionist party/ies. It would also potentially undermine their argument that the union doesn't work for Scotland. At this stage we will conclude that the SNP will (mercifully) not involve themselves in Government at Westminster, and if they ever do, it could wreck their party, not the union.