Be careful Nicola!

The SNP is playing a dangerous game and it might just backfire on them. Whatever we think about fox hunting, and it seems true that most people want it stopped or curtailed severely, the SNP’s use of the issue to punish the government for not getting serious enough about devolution may, in the long run, come back to haunt them. If the true reason is, as Sturgeon has intimated, to demonstrate to the government the potential power of the SNP parliamentary wedge, it may just scare voters in Scotland off in the future. The thinkers among such voters may heed Cameron’s charge of opportunism, but others may also come to the conclusion that this a bad use of the landslide the Scots delivered last May. We have to assume that half of Scottish voters supported the SNP for a better deal for Scotland rather than for foxes. They may well resent having their votes thus corrupted. If it is a one-off, a shot across the bows, fair enough, but the surprise element cannot, by definition, be used more than once.