Alex Salmond advises "Vote Liberal Democrat"

I notice Wee Eck this morning putting his foot in his mouth again, as has been his habit now for the past eighteen months or so. What a liability the First Minister must be to all those around him. His latest political strategy is to advise voters south of the border to vote Liberal Democrat, to increase the chances of a hung Parliament and thereby give Scotland (or that proportion of it represented by the SNP) a stronger hand.

Alex Salmond is a banker by profession and a political gambler by inclination. He must surely know what the odds are in all this. Of the 650-odd MPs returned on 6th May, probably ninety five percent will either be Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat. Two of these three parties are likely to form a coalition government if there is no outright winner. Labour and the Conservatives will not co-operate, so the Lib Dems are likely to be one of the two parties in government, and will moderate the excesses of the other party, which ever that one is. Put together any two parties who have approximately 30 percent of the vote each, and the new parliament will have a comfortable working majority. There will be no need to complicate things and strike deals with anyone else, and the markets will not tolerate a loose “issue by issue” working arrangement. We will need stability. The Lib Dems will almost certainly hold out for voting reform and their changes to the tax system. Both these policies will massively benefit Scotland.
The Lib Dems will have nearly ten times as many MPs at Westminster as the SNP, and probably twice as many Scottish MPs, as they have just now. They will be no less Scottish than their SNP counterparts. Following the First Minister’s logic, a vote for the Liberal Democrats in Perth and North Perthshire will be every bit as effective in protecting Scotland’s interests as one in Bristol or London, and much more effective than sending some numpty of a “local champion” up a mountain to shout “Scotland!” and hope that some-one will hear them. What good will that do? With the issues we have to face in our everyday lives in 2010, we will need to play the odds a bit more carefully and think before placing our vote. Our First Minister is playing the odds badly, just as the bankers did, trying to get us to back a horse that will never really be in the race.
Alex in Wonderland, indeed!