OpEd: SNP 20-04-15

The commentators 20-04-15

...on the Scottish National Party

Can someone tell me why in the name of all that is holy there are some apparently rational people who are even contemplating the elevation of the Scottish Nationalist Party to a position of effective dominance in the government of the United Kingdom – an entity that they are sworn to destroy? That is their charter, their aim, their ambition, their mission statement: to overturn last year’s referendum, and to break us up.
- Boris Johnson, Daily Telegraph

Supporters of the Scottish National Party — which claims to be to the left of Labour and which is undeniably Nationalist — is increasingly engaged in the kind of street-by-street intimidation of opponents that we would more normally associate with fascists.
- Dominic Lawson, Daily Mail

The SNP is performing a remarkable dual role. North of the border, it is poised to sweep the board as the principal party of the Scottish nation. South of the border, it is acquiring precisely the caricatured significance of the “loony left” in the 80s: a supposedly militant force that Miliband cannot control and would (the argument continues) control him if he depended on its votes to govern.
- Matthew d'Ancona, The Guardian

If the Scottish National Party holds the balance of power in the next Parliament, England will effectively end up being ruled by a hard-left, anti- English regime in Edinburgh. But that disastrous scenario is all too likely if the current opinion polls are mirrored in the actual General Election result. With the Scottish Nationalists rampant north of the border, Labour are in a state of complete meltdown in their traditional stronghold.
- Leo McKinstrey, Daily Express

Any thought of balance from our national papers in their overall coverage of the campaign vanished on day one. But SubScribe clung to the wistful hope that when it came to manifesto time, they might at least focus on the policies - even if they then proceeded to rubbish them. Dream on.
Excluding the FT, the only papers that came close to offering their readers the information they needed were the Independent, its little sister the i, and - to a lesser extent - the Guardian and the Times. The others have been little more than propaganda sheets.
- How the nationals covered the manifestos (or didn't)

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