Financial Preview 22/04/2015: UK General Election 2015, Thursday 7th May 2015

With the SNP launching its manifesto a bit later than the rest, it is appropriate that the past week has been dominated by discussions surrounding the Scottish party.

The SNP has spent the week under heavy fire, with the Tories, UKIP and certain members all painting the party as the biggest threat to the UK and its stability since the last electoral bogeyman. At the manifesto launch Sturgeon was aggressive on the fact that she would curb Labour’s austerity measures and Trident spending if in a partnership with Miliband’s lot, also commenting that she would seek robust spending on the NHS and raised the minimum wage further than Labour’s proposed level. Like the clothes-swapping manifestos of last week, this was the SNP in suspiciously red clothing.



As the election gets closer, with only 15 days until voting commences, the likelihood of an SNP/Labour partnership is simultaneously increasing and looking more tentative. The SNP is keen to pull the UK to the left, and has consistently extended an olive branch to Labour, an olive branch that has routinely been broken by Miliband and co. Labour seem to be allowing their decision making to be ruled by the Salmond/Sturgeon pocket-placing taunts of the right wing parties. Yet Miliband doesn’t really stand a chance of getting the majority he needs to ensure a Labour government without an SNP intervention.

However, the Tories don’t stand much chance of a majority either. Whilst Cameron is keen to paint an SNP/Labour partnership as a ‘match made in hell’, the only realistic way the Tories could get into power would be their own nonsensical left-wing-right-wing hybrid coalition with both the Liberal Democrats AND UKIP, with the Ulster Unionists thrown in for good measure. And the potential reason why the Tories aren’t gaining the traction they need to avoid this Frankenstein’s monster of a government may be their constant attacks on the SNP.



Like Labour wheeling out Tony Blair to talk about immigration, the Tories let John Major out from his cage to warn voters against the wily ways of the SNP, with the former PM claiming Labour would be susceptible to SNP ‘blackmail’. Yet the Tories are facing a backlash over their SNP approach, with many criticising their end of the world-like rhetoric; even old Tory boy Lord Tebbit called Cameron’s aggressively anti-SNP stance ‘puzzling’. The over-reliance on negative campaigning, something the Tories would try and deny, is harming their chances of creating the surge in popularity they desperately.

The muddled, and muddied, campaigning of the last 7 days has been reflected in the political spread betting. In other words, after alternate weeks of Tory and Labour dominance based on bold and policy-based movements, the utter lack of cohesion in election betting that was seen at the start of the campaign has returned. The only sustained betting direction has been against the SNP, despite the Scottish party increasing their General Seats spread to 45-48. Whilst the Tories have fallen to a General Seats spread of 280-285, higher than Labour’s 268-273, neither party has pulled away on the betting front. Unsurprisingly, odds for no overall majority have increased yet again, now sitting at a spread of 85.4-92.4.