A little glitch in the great Tory-SNP conspiracy theory

Anyone confused by the great Tory-SNP conspiracy theory would do well to read Iain Martin’s recent article for CapX where the political pundit explains why an alliance of convenience between the two parties might appear unlikely but makes sense.

“What should be plain now is that the Conservatives are working unashamedly for an SNP victory in Scotland,” Martin claims. “Senior Tories confirm it, that this is quite deliberate on the part of the Tories and very much driven by George Osborne.”

In a nutshell, if almost all Labour’s seats in Scotland turn SNP, the chances are greatly increased that the Conservatives will emerge as the largest party in a hung parliament on 8 May.

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David Cameron would then promise Home Rule for Scotland – full powers over taxation and welfare in a fundamental constitutional shake-up.

At which point, says Martin, we would then see the introduction of English-only votes at Westminster “or perhaps the even more radical solution of the Commons sitting as an English parliament with the House of Lords replaced by an elected second chamber deciding on the reserved UK issues of defence and foreign affairs”.

Martin admits that “it is extraordinary that a party of the Union – the Tories – should be doing this. But there you are. These are extraordinary times.”

I have one quibble with Martin’s hypothesis: he is working on the assumption that the Tories will win more seats in England than Labour. And there is no guarantee that this will happen.

It’s true that in 2010 David Cameron did well in England, winning 298 of the 533 seats, including 91 gains mostly from Labour.

But that was the first time in four general elections that the Tories enjoyed a majority in England – and, if you look at the sums, there’s every chance they’ll miss out again on 7 May. Here’s how:

After three by-election losses (one to Labour and two to Ukip) the Tories are now down to 295 English seats.

The winning post for a majority in an England-only Parliament is 267 (half of 533 plus one). The Tories can expect to gain about 10 seats from the Lib Dems, pushing their starting point to 305.

That means they need to lose no more than 38 seats in order to keep an overall majority. What are their chances of putting a limit on their losses?

UK Polling Report has a list of 100 seats being defended with majorities of up to just over 12 per cent - meaning they would be lost on swings of up to six per cent. Around 80 of them are Labour targets in England.

Working down the list we find that a two per cent swing to Labour would ostensibly give Ed Miliband’s party a total of up to 30 seats; three per cent could produce 45; four per cent up to 55 seats; five per cent up to 65 seats; and six per cent would produce up to 77 gains.

To work out the expected swing, we need to start with the 2010 results in England where the Tories outpolled Labour by 39.6 to 28.1 per cent - a gap of 11.5 points.

In the most recent voting intention poll from Survation for the Mirror, the England-only figures are Tory 34 per cent and Labour 33 per cent. That’s a swing of more than five per cent from the Tories to Labour.

If those figures materialised on 7 May the Tories would be losing around 55 seats. That would reduce them to just over 250 including around 10 gained from the Lib Dems. Labour – who can expect a similar number of Lib Dem gains - would be the largest party with around 265 English seats.

The figures are an illustration - reality will turn out differently. But the point is this: the Tories are an English party – they have only eight Welsh seats and just one Scottish MP – but England is not a Tory country.