HELEN FROM Perthshire works in the public sector, votes Labour and “absolutely” does not want a Tory government. “I think a lot of the things David Cameron has done are wrong,” she says.
Next month, however, Helen is going to become that rarest of political species, a Scottish Conservative voter.
Edward (not his real name), from Currie, near Edinburgh, is a wealthy fund manager from the city’s financial services industry who has been a Tory for years. In May’s election, he will be gritting his teeth at the 50p tax and voting Labour.
In Perth, a group of “United Against Separation” activists led by Andrew Skinner, a Labour supporter from Glasgow, has been leafleting the Labour stronghold of North Muirton, trying to persuade people to vote Tory. “They did really well and the Conservatives bought them lunch afterwards,” says Victor Clements, the director of Forward Together, another local tactical voting campaign. “It’s quite surreal when it comes down to it.”
In every case, the reason is the same. “They disgust me, the SNP,” says Helen.
“We need to reduce as much as we can the chance of the SNP being able to hold the Labour Party to ransom,” says Edward.
“One of our main mottos is country before party,” says Mr Skinner.
As a nationalist electoral meteorite threatens to extinguish all other political life in Scotland – and reopen the independence question – a plethora of tactical voting campaigns is springing up to help save the UK and hold back the SNP surge.
In most places the will be for Labour.
In Perth and rural Perthshire, unusually, the Tories are the main challengers. In some places, there
tactical vote are even hopes that people will vote Liberal Democrat.
Last Sunday, the former First Minister, Alex Salmond, was appearing before 350 enraptured fans in Dundee. “People keep asking me, will you be deputy prime minister?” he said. “My response to that is, ‘Deputy?’”
But as he bathed in the worship, United Against Separation was delivering thousands of leaflets in Mr Salmond’s adopted constituency of Gordon, urging Labour and Tory voters to back the incumbent Lib Dems.
“We got Tory voters galore in Gordon,” said Mr Skinner. “We saw nothing of the SNP. They can try painting us as Tories or Lib Dems and we can show them the areas we’ve hit for Labour. We are of every party and no party.”
“The SNP were massively overconfident in the week before the referendum, but if people who are positive about Scotland in the UK vote sensibly, they will be proved overconfident again,” says Alastair Cameron, one of the leaders of another campaign to promote tactical voting, ScotlandinUnion.
Mr Cameron lives in Edinburgh South West, no longer a safe Labour seat. In a constituency poll six weeks ago, the SNP, which came fourth here in 2010, was cruising to victory with 40 per cent of the vote.
But as well as the SNP-swinging council estates, Edinburgh South West has the capital’s most comfortable suburbs, and quite large numbers of Tories and Lib Dems – 42 per cent of the vote in 2010. If enough of them switched, Labour’s Ricky Henderson could hold on.
“I’ve resigned as a member of the Lib Dems to vote tactically,” says Mr Cameron. “I know a Lib Dem who is a party member and has been out campaigning for Labour.” Edward, the fund man- ager from Currie, is also an Edinburgh South West resident.
The parties are officially hostile but at local level often helpful.
“I totally get that they have to distance themselves from us,” said Mr Skinner. “But we’ve had full support from some candidates. We’ve delivered their material, they’ve fed us, given us the right places to hit for the tactical vote.”
Yet how many people really will make the big leap from Tory to Labour, or vice-versa? John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, is sceptical. “We know that for people to vote tactically they have to hate one party and be relatively indifferent to the one they’re voting tactically for,” he says.
Southern and western Edinburgh, with its high middle class vote, might be “the one place where there’s enough [potential tactical voters] to make a difference,” he says. In Edinburgh South West, Labour’s Ricky Henderson says he’s come across some such switchers, but not many – though Labour hasn’t done any thorough canvassing in the Tory parts of the seat yet, he admits. A poll by Lord Ashcroft found that 72 per cent of Tories in the constituency wouldn’t consider changing their vote.
British Election Study polling from last autumn showed that both Tories and Liberal Democrats did not much prefer Labour over the SNP. All this polling was done weeks or months ago, however. As an SNP landslide draws closer, it may concentrate minds.
“People don’t want to be represented in Westminster for the next five years by somebody who’s only going to make trouble and go on about constitutional issues,” says Alastair Cameron. “Fifty-five per cent of Scots voted No. They just want to get on with their lives.”