How we can keep the UK together, suggests FREDERICK FORSYTH WHAT are we British going to do about our politicians? Published: 14:32, Fri, December 26, 2014 By FREDERICK FORSYTH You turn on the telly and see the fictional version: lean, hard, fit, lantern-jawed, alpha males all. Determined to fight and win for their people. Then you flick a couple of channels to The Week In Westminster and look at the reality. Flapping in the breeze like a flashers shirt-tail. Facing disaster, staring at the solution but too flaccid to do anything about it. Our media are staring at the Scottish situation in horror. Some fool said the secessionist SNP lost the recent referendum. Did they heck. They have achieved every conceivable concession from a marshmallow Westminster and have come roaring back, with every poll saying they are stronger than ever and going to dominate Parliament after May 8 next year. If the polls are true the SNP, having trounced Scottish Labour and taken most of their seats, will come south with between 30 and 40 MPs led by Alex Salmond. That figure would almost certainly make them the junior partner of a Labour government in a new coalition but at a staggering constitutional price. Beyond doubt a new and even more rigged referendum and break-up of our country on the basis of half of seven percent of the UK electorate. And the weakling Ed Miliband would grant the far more ruthless Salmond his every wish. As the SNP will never, ever, collaborate with the Tories, the SNP pistol is pointing straight at David Camerons forehead. So what is he doing about it? Well, Ive already mentioned a short bill to forbid any more referendums for a decade so I wont go on about that again. But the Smoked Salmond has chosen the constituency of Gordon as his preferred seat, so lets start there. The retiring MP is Lib Dem veteran Malcolm Bruce with an almost 7,000 majority. But a lot of that is personal. His unknown successor Christine Jardine may not inherit that. So... a marginal. Can Salmond be stopped? Of course. If the Tories and Labour, who will not win anyway, withdrew their candidates completely the entire non-secessionist vote of Gordon would go to Ms Jardine. If ever there was a case for tactical voting, for putting country before the sterile games of the parties (to borrow De Gaulles phrase) this is it. And we are talking about our country here, not just a Scottish seat most people have never heard of. Alex Salmond has repeatedly sworn that he is determined to break the UK in half if it kills him. It is his lifes work. It is often said that the Tories are nowhere in Scotland because they have but one MP. Not so. The Tories have no strongholds and so on the first-past-the-post system usually lose. In fact at the 2010 election 413,000 Scots voted Conservative against 491,000 voters for SNP. Put two antisecessionist votes together and they have a clear majority. But will they collaborate to save the nation? Will they heck. Squabbling over peanuts and losing is much more their style. South of the border it is much the same. As Eastleigh proved, the centre-Right if it collaborated would govern the country with a clear and workable majority putting Labour, Lib Dems and SNP out to grass. But will they? Again, heck no. Fighting and insulting each other is apparently more pleasurable. So Old Blighty seems to be drifting towards chaos as half those responsible are measuring up their peerage robe.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 23:26:37 +0000
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