Nicola Sturgeon: flying over Scotland with ‘TMDWIB’
“Oh about three or four hours – nothing like enough,” The Most Dangerous Woman In Britain (Daily Mail) tells me: “Still,” she continues, “the end is in sight.”
John, the pilot, comes over the intercom asking if we’d like to head over Kirkcaldy. The SNP press team and TMDWIB silently smile aboard the Sturgocopter emblazoned with her photo as we clatter north towards Dundee. It’s daft, infantile of course, but the spectre of TMDWIB looking down on Gordon Brown is both alluring and plain silly.
We discuss last night and Ed Miliband saying he’d rather see a Tory government than talk to the party Scots may well elect in landslide numbers. Basically TMDWIB clearly cannot believe it.
Not will not – cannot: “They were already rolling back from that last night,” she says. Later, as we do an interview in Dundee looking out over the beautiful sweep of the Tay, I ask again about all this “rolling back” but she’s no actual evidence for saying this, when pressed.
It feels more like a wish than anything concrete. But even as we speak Labour big guns like Andy Burnham and Hilary Benn are cutting Miliband’s ground from under him, saying of course Labour will parley with the SNP: that’s politics.
Looking down on Gordon Brown? Above Kirkaldy and Raith Rovers pic.twitter.com/x8xRb89NpG
— alex thomson (@alextomo) May 1, 2015
But it shows up the tough ground the SNP must negotiate if The Poll delivers what the opinion polls promise. It’s not every day you do a “piece-to-camera” about a political party with the party boss sitting a foot away watching helplessly – but that’s helicopters for you.
Crossing the smooth waters of the Firth of Forth on May Day, I wanted to remind people how smooth this campaign has been for the SNP – the tough part starts Friday (if the polls are right). Tough stuff down south of course but also in a Yellow Scotland tough for TMDWIB and her party.
With one candidate openly saying the party line must be followed above and beyond what constituents might want, should we be worried about the SNP’s perceived tendency to something alarmingly beyond party discipline ?
They passed a motion at their Glasgow conference remember, banning MPs from making public criticisms of the party.
Isn’t all this autocratic tendency a bit – well – like the New Labour Party – the party that appears to have done so much to alienate voters across Scotland?
TMDWIB bats it all airily away but, I notice, skirts around getting involved in specifics. But these questions will grow if there really is a Scotland virtually without any meaningful political opposition at UK level.
So yes, there is the obvious jockeying and drama of Westminster and the overworked whips going forward – but tough travels for the party in Scotland too.
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