The Establishment is Terrified of Nicola Sturgeon

The Scottish National party’s (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon’s strong performance in the televised election party leader’s debate has put the wind up the establishment. In what looks like a classic dirty tricks operation, the Telegraph newspaper alleges in a report that a third or fourth hand Foreign Office official's ‘note’ of a meeting between Sturgeon and the French Ambassador to the UK, the SNP leader voiced a preference for the Tory leader David Cameron to remain as Prime Minister. According to the note, Sturgeon didn’t think that Labour’s Ed Miliband would make a good PM.

Sturgeon and the French Ambassador, Sylvie Bermann, and the French Consul, Pierre-Alain Coffinier, who purportedly had said this, have all denied that it is true. The civil service Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood is to investigate the leak.

In the note itself, even the writer questions the validity of the report, thinking it unlikely someone like Sturgeon would talk about things like this with foreign officials. It does beggar belief that an experienced politician like Sturgeon would say something like this, and it doesn’t add up when Sturgeon is trying to form some kind of post-election alliance with Labour. If the report had said something like Sturgeon wanted the Tories to win so as to speed up the chances of Scottish independence, it would be more plausible, although not completely. But to say that Miliband wouldn’t make as good a PM as Cameron, doesn’t make any sense at all.

Another Tory backing newspaper the Daily Mail waded in with a headline labelling Sturgeon ‘the most dangerous woman in Britain.’ All of this shows that the establishment is extremely worried about the SNP (and Plaid Cymru and the Greens) holding the balance of power after the election. What is scaring them so much?

Clearly, the prospect of pressure being put onto a Labour minority administration to reverse the poor bashing anti-austerity policies of the Coalition and opening up the question of why we need the Trident nuclear weapons system, has thrown them into a tailspin. The prospect of a government actually introducing policies that favour the bulk of the population over the establishment elite, and having a proper debate over our defense strategy is beyond the pale for our establishment elites. This is an eventuality that must be stopped at all costs.

It reminds me of the infamous ‘Zinoviev letter’ published in 1924 just ahead of the general election in, yes, the Daily Mail (who later went on to praise Adolf Hitler). Zinoviev whose signature was (apparently) on the document, was a senior Soviet Union official, writing to the Communist party of Great Britain. The letter called for increased agitation from workers in Britain to form a communist government. The letter was a forgery, but it did enough to collapse the Liberal party vote and give the Tories a big majority in Parliament.

Labour has been quick to denounced the ‘Sturgeon note’, seeing a tribal advantage where they are threatened with wipe out at the hands of the SNP, but few in Scotland will fall for this obvious manipulation of the voters by the establishment. In England too, I can’t see it having much effect except with the most loyal of Labourites.

But Labour’s acquiescence with these reactionary forces opens up the question of a ‘grand coalition’ between the establishment parties, to keep out the peasants from north of the border and elsewhere. If this comes to pass it will be the end for the Labour party and perhaps the Tories too. All the talk of Labour being Tories in disguise will be laid bare for all to see. It really would be the ‘longest suicide note in history.’