Nicola Sturgeon hammers home her anti-austerity message in south

Nicola Sturgeon, still in her first few months in office as Scottish first minister and as leader of the Scottish National Party, is making a habit of visiting London. And she will be back many more times between now and May.

Sturgeon’s core point, an unscripted one, came in the second last paragraph of her speech to a crowded university lecture hall that included, intriguingly, officials from Whitehall’s cabinet office, keen to learn more about her thinking.

In it, she said, the SNP will make the case that economic austerity has not worked and will not work and that social justice does "in a way perhaps that [the] Labour Party of old would have made more emphatically than they do now".

Support for Conservatives

The SNP could be crucial to the make-up of the next House of Commons majority, though Sturgeon has ruled out backing the Conservatives in any way and its support for Labour will be bought vote by vote.

Up to now, the SNP has nearly always lost out against Labour in the battle for House of Commons seats in the final chapter of the campaign, when Scottish voters have veered towards Labour as the only party that could wield power in Westminster.

This time, it is different, or it could be. Every opinion poll forecasts major gains. Some predict a Labour wipeout, where the party could lose most or nearly all of the 41 seats it holds in Scotland – a crucial battalion that Ed Miliband needs if he is to gain the keys of No 10.

Sturgeon’s economic message is cleverly constructed to emphasise – for the benefit of Scots – the negotiating hand the SNP will have in the next Commons, if voters there trust the party with a majority of Commons seats.

However, the message has other colours. The danger is the SNP will be seen by English voters as Scottish raiders intent on pillage during late-night haggling in Westminster – an image the Conservatives are doing much to promote.

For this, Sturgeon has an antidote prepared: one where the SNP will be the one to carry the banner for a different economic agenda throughout the UK, supported by parties such as Plaid Cymru in Wales and the Greens in England.

Labour and the Conservatives agreed broadly in the House of Commons last month on the need for a further round of austerity after the May 7th election – one, she argues, that will do incalculable damage.

“I don’t think that any economic policy can be seen as a success when it causes severe anxiety and misery to so many people – including many of our most vulnerable citizens,” she told her university audience.

Chancellor George Osborne five years ago promised that all would share the pain to repair the UK's finances, but the poor – and particularly female poor – have borne the brunt, she argued, quoting statistics in support.

The last crisis was caused by debt. The next will be caused by debt, too, she said, quoting the Office of Budgetary Responsibility’s prediction that, by 2020, UK households will be more heavily indebted than they were in 2008.

Private debt

Public spending is being cut; business investment is recovering, but still low; and exports are subdued, she argued, But long-stagnant wages are rising now only slowly, leaving Osborne’s economic plan relying upon private debt.

“It’s worth thinking about what that means. [He] is making unprecedented cuts to public spending and the public services on which we all rely. Yet his entire economic model depends on individual households taking on more debt than at any time in history,” she said.

For now, Sturgeon can speak as a leader not responsible for raising all of the money her administration spends – but the SNP has repeatedly proved itself to be adept at winning credit and avoiding blame.

Sturgeon’s tactic of fighting for seats in Scotland, but of leading the anti-austerity camp across the UK, could be difficult for Labour to counter, particularly since she will be singing a tune that many Labour voters want Ed Miliband to sing.