UK Election: how the establishment smeared Nicola Sturgeon

The day after the 2nd-live TV election debate a Telegraph story broke claiming the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) Nicola Sturgeon had previously confided she would prefer David Cameron to remain Prime Minister over a new Ed Miliband administration. This was allegedly relayed to a French ambassador and accounted for in the meeting notes of a British government civil servant.

Sturgeon quickly and emphatically denied this and the ambassador supported her. Despite the denials and lack of hard evidence, the tory press pushed the story with opportunistic Labour egging it on - leading to SNP stickers on the offending headline below.

*Staggeringly*, the Telegraph online story STILL doesn't carry any of the denials from the people involved. http://t.co/UmeHhhYG7q
— Wings Over Scotland (@WingsScotland) April 4, 2015

Labour's opportunism over an unconfirmed story from a known tory paper and mouthpiece for bankers was relentless

Devastating: @Telegraph reporting Nicola Sturgeon secretly backs Cameron #voteSNPgetTories http://t.co/GrJpzscfbO pic.twitter.com/a4BkLytTMZ
— Scottish Labour (@scottishlabour) April 3, 2015

But called out by some.

@UKLabour @Labour #UKLabour Miliband has just lost my vote by playing along with Telegraph and Mail lies about Nicola Sturgeon. Stupidity!
— Fred Litten (@FredLitten) April 4, 2015

The whole sorry saga was summed up as follows:

Either @Telegraph is badly wrong, or UK civil service is scheming against Sturgeon. Either way, British establishment is rocking. #GE2015
— Liam O'Hare (@Liam_O_Hare) April 3, 2015

UK election: The agenda of the tory press

The mainstream media seem to be constructing a narrative that Miliband and his party are failing to connect with voters.

Labour have their issues but the claims are so strong that if it was true, the tories would be capitalising, Cameron can go on looking flash at PMQs, having good economic news and be supported by a friendly media - yet a 2015 Poll of Polls shows Labour mostly out-performing their rivals despite the propaganda:

MAY2015 Poll of Polls

This could be further evidence, if any were needed, that alternative sources of media have eroded the dominance of the establishment and that the rhetoric from them is increasingly out of step with the reality of their lives.

Growing UK inequality will surely only strengthen the Labour vote. There are an increasing amount of workers who are either self-employed, on low incomes, zero-hours contract or workfare.

And ultimately it's one person, one vote no matter the size of the wallet.

A broken voting system

The UK's First Past the Post (FPTP) does not translate party's vote share (their total votes as a % of all votes) into seats because if you vote for a loser, your vote effectively counts for nothing both within your constituency and nationally. FPTP simply elects whoever gained the most votes whether that person won by 0.01% or by a landslide. Thus a party with many constituency candidates running a close race but coming 2nd has cause to feel there is a democratic deficit.

Alternative Vote (AV) would give 'losing' voters a voice with secondary preferences for example the London mayoral election system
In 2012 voters received a 2nd option if their 1st choice candidate was eliminated by not reaching the criteria. Their 2nd choices are then redistributed in the 2nd round if that choice was one of the remaining candidates who met the criteria.

Proportional Representation (PR) simply attempts to align % of seats allocated to % of vote share for each party so that there at least national recognition for voters who do not win at constituency level.