To not understand the scaremongering about Labour and the SNP?

[Kampeki]

I am genuinely struggling to understand.

If there is a minority Labour government, the SNP will presumably vote with that government in a lot of the more "left-wing" votes, with or without any deal. Raising the top rate of tax, for example, or introducing a mansion tax. It is my understanding that they support these policies anyway.

The SNP will presumably vote against the government on issues like the renewal of Trident. However, unless they choose to play a very dodgy political game, the Tories will surely vote with the government on such issues, so the SNP will be irrelevant.

What issues would fail to attract support from either side of the house, thereby forcing the Labour Party to enter into a potentially damaging deal with the SNP?

Can nobody explain this for me?

Good try

I think because on a UK wide basis the polls are so close, the Tories have a lot to gain from playing it up.

I think you've nailed it. And OO is right. It's being played up for effect. Given how popular Sturgeon seems to be, I'm not sure everyone will see it as all that fearsome! The opposite end of things is Cameron doing a deal with Farage. Gruesome in comparison, although far less likely to come to pass.

There is no "deal"/coalition on offer, from either the SNP or Labour. OP makes a good point.

I think because on a UK wide basis the polls are so close, the Tories have a lot to gain from playing it up.

I'm sure that's true. I just don't understand why anyone is actually worried about it. What do they think is going to happen?

But the military budget, for example, will not just be trident or not. If, hypothetically, the labour party introduced a 10% cut in the number of regulars and kept trident, would the conservatives support that?
The fixed term act allows a new election if:

1. there is a vote of no confidence in a govt and
2. there is no vote of confidence in 14 days

There is no requirement for a govt who lost a vote of no confidence to allow another party to have a confidence vote within the timescale

The SNP are against austerity, coping without any benefit bashing for a few years would prove the condems pointless poorbashers, and we don't want that to happen, do we?

What would David Moron do then, with his flagship policy pooed all over?

I think the one worry for me is the relative power between Scotland/ England etc. Like everything though there is good and bad, parliament is far too London centric I think anyway..... but would having it London and Scotland centric be better or worse for the rest of us who are neither? Who knows

I am terrified of Labour/SNP ruling the UK and its keeping me awake at night. Labour will take us back to square one, egged on by the SNP who only care about the Scottish people. It will be a disaster for this country and I fear for mine and my husbands jobs.

Labour like spending money they don't have and adding the SNP to the mix will only make things worse.

Weak coalition (or 'informal' agreements) mean the Government will be able to do a lot less, and certainly will find it difficult to introduce bold changes. And every issue will need to be negotiated behind the scenes before being presented to Parliament.

I'm not wild about that deal-making style, but others may prefer it.

And I don't think it's either right or reliable to assume that the Opposition will save the Government, should principal parties disagree.

As most of the press are on the right of the spectrum and controlled by people who think Ed Miliband is akin to Karl Marx, anything left of current Labour policy (i.e. the SNP) will get a pasting in the press.

For the owners of the press, the impact of austerity on ordinary people is irrelevant - their motives are to convince their readers to vote for their Tory chums, even if their readers would be better off voting elsewhere.

Deal making is a normal part of politics in other vojntries - anyone watch Borgen?

There is no chance of it becoming Scotland centric. There are only 59 Scottish MP's out of a total 650.

The SNP will vote with more leftist policy, that's all that will happen.

This is not Braveheart. We are not all going to paint our faces blue and come screaming at you with bagpipes and spears. Chill out England.

Labour/SNP coalition would make the disastrous Labour government we had in the seventies look efficient.

If you are in England with a population of 53 million the Labour/SNP Gov will be held to ransom by the SNP who are voted in only by Scottish voters who represent 3 million people.

SNP policy is massive increases in Scottish public spending funded by taxes collected from English voters.

No taxation without representation of he political movement that eventually led to American Independence.

I can see a Labour/SNP coalition leading for greater support for a break up of the union.

Exactly Morebeta, a vote for LabourSNP is totally insane and illogical.

There are 5.3 million people in scotland.

59 MP's can't outvote the other 591. It's basic maths.

If the majority of the rest of the country vote for Labour, SNP will vote for labour policies which are more in line with theirs.

We will not make you wear kilts. The national dish will not be haggis.

What a paradox that some are being kept awake at night by the fear that Labour in agreement with the SNP will take the country in a completely different direction from the current coalition, whilst others are being kept awake at night by the fear that they won't be very different at all.

You are completely correct OP. In the case of a minority labour government the SNP, Plaid Cymru the greens and the liberal democrats would vote with them on some issues and the conservatives and liberal democrats on others-so they would get most of their programme through.
Unless of course another large party chose to vote against them just to bring them down rather than on principle.
It is in the interests of the conservatives to scaremonger about this and Ed Milliband has made it clear that he is not up for a coalition with the SNP.

PS the idea of a conservative government propped up by UKIP scares me more.

loa the debt has almost doubled under the ConDem government, from nearly 900 billion to almost 1.6 trillion.

It would seem they are adept at spending money they don't have too, despite professing austerity would deal with the problem.

It would not suit them to have an anti-austerity party in power, even in coalition, because it would expose their main policy as an abject failure.

For the owners of the press, the impact of austerity on ordinary people is irrelevant

Well, yes. If I was wealthy enough to own a newspaper, I'd be having a hard time seeing the problem with austerity, too. Mind you, if any of those dossers let their mangy dog scratch my Bentley again, I'd let 'em have it, this time.

PS the idea of a conservative government propped up by UKIP scares me more.

Totally agree!