Why are the Tories so paranoid about the SNP?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/25/why-tories-paranoid-about-snp

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The current obsession of the Tories with the SNP has its dangers. By holding them out as some kind of bogeyman they hope to frighten voters with the prospect of a Labour-SNP government. This is absurd. If the SNP do well it will be at the expense largely of the Labour party – are the Tories really saying they would prefer Labour MPs to be elected en masse from Scotland? In any event, leaving aside Ed Miliband’s repeated statements against any coalition with an SNP bloc, is it to be supposed that the Labour party in parliament would be welcoming to those who have defeated their own colleagues? It makes no sense.

But the Tories are at it hard even in my old stamping ground of the Borders, where we had the strongest no vote in mainland Scotland in last year’s referendum, and in a seat that Alex Salmond tactlessly but correctly described as their “worst seat”. (That did not deter him from boasting that he addressed 500 people at the local SNP adoption meeting even though the hotel website shows that the venue holds just over half that.)

Related: ‘Disgraceful’ Tory attacks on the SNP are endangering union, say top Lib Dems

The Tory tactic is an effort to scare votes away from the Lib Dem MP, Michael Moore. The truth is that a new Tory government dependent on Ukip sympathisers in their midst is a greater threat to the unity of the UK than any band of SNP MPs.

My great predecessor as Liberal leader, Jo Grimond, put it best when he wrote: “I do not like the word devolution as it has come to be called. It implies that power rests at Westminster, from which centre some may be graciously devolved. I would rather begin by assuming that power should rest with the people who entrust it to their representatives to discharge the essential roles of government. Once we accept that the Scots and the Welsh are nations, then we must accord them parliaments which have all the normal powers of government, except for those which they delegate to the United Kingdom or the EEC.”

That sentiment is close to the founding traditions of the Labour party and would be acceptable to all but the most extreme Nationalists. That is why it is possible to see Labour, the SNP and the Lib Dems working together in a constitutional convention or commission to beef up the Scottish parliament and replace the House of Lords with a quasi-federal democratic senate. (Regrettably, despite the best endeavours of Bob Maclennan and myself, the convention receives only passing mention in the Lib Dem manifesto.)

The odd one out is the Conservative party, which has always been hostile to the setting up of even the present parliament. While there has always been a good case for an English grand committee in the Commons, David Cameron’s attempt at a 100-day quick fix is ill thought out and continued Tory intransigence on proper constitutional reform plus wobbling on membership of the EU is far more likely to lead to the break-up of the UK..