SNP U-turn on power-sharing deals

Shock, horror! Another principled SNP stance has crumbled at first contact with the prospect of power. For much of the past three weeks the nationalists in Scotland have been screaming blue murder about opposition groups negotiating pacts on local authorities where the SNP are the largest party, to lock them out of office. Such deals between the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour should, perhaps, be unsurprising given that Nicola Sturgeon’s followers are still committed to the break-up of the UK. But that hasn’t stopped the First Minister’s lackeys from crying foul play every time a new deal has been announced.

Take South Lanarkshire where the SNP won 27 of the council’s 64 seats but failed to win a majority, despite being the largest party. Labour and the Liberal Democrats instead struck a deal with local independents to keep both them and the Conservatives out of office. Barely had the news been announced than Maree Todd MSP, one of the new breed of blessed Nicola’s acolytes, took to Twitter to declaim it as a democratic insult.