Why the SNP surge matters

The Scottish National Party (SNP) seems to have replaced the kirk as the "guarantor and defender of a distinct Scottish sensibility", says Alex Massie in The Spectator. It's persuaded Scots that it alone "stands up for Scotland" and that "apostates vote for unionist parties". On this basis the SNP could win as many as 55 of Scotland's 59 seats on 7 May. Labour MPs are "in despair".

When voters are "animated by quasi-religious zealotry", economics and reason can "go hang". Labour argues that the SNP's preference for "full fiscal autonomy" would leave a black hole in Scotland's finances.

Stewart Hosie, the SNP's deputy leader, says this is "irrelevant". Scots voters fixate on the idea that Scotland contributes more, per capita, in tax revenue than the UK average, while ignoring the fact "that it also receives much more per capita than it contributes".

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"National emotion appears to be sweeping all before it, and the SNP has been able to create an impregnable parallel reality," agrees Andrew Gilligan in The Daily Telegraph. The surge matters. A bloc of up to 40 new SNP MPs could "kick the props from under any minority government and they have sworn to do so if it were a Tory one", says Matthew Parris in The Times.

So they would have to allow the Labour government to have a go (even though Ed Miliband has ruled out an SNP coalition). But would the SNP "help the British Labour Party make a success of running a UK government in London"?

No Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon would run a minority Labour government ragged, destroy its authority and continue the "torture" until she and Alex Salmond judged the moment opportune, and Scots sufficiently "softened up", for a second referendum on independence which they would win.

Certainly, judging by the media coverage, the Tories have "hit the jackpot", says Patrick Wintour in The Guardian. By uniting Sturgeon and Miliband in the nation's mind, they have "injected a badly needed new ingredient into their warnings" about the Labour leader.

In truth, the 40-odd SNP MPs coming to Westminster will have "zero" influence (unless Tories vote alongside them) and their policies are essentially "carbon copies" of Labour's. Yet as one strategist put it, Labour is now being forced to fight the election on the opposition's turf. "A classic error."

But dismissing the SNP is a mistake. Indeed, given the evolution of Scotland's politics, the question may be whether England, not Scotland, "should leave the union", says Martin Wolf in the Financial Times. I back the union, says Wolf, but "not at any price".

The SNP has little interest in the UK's fate. "Its interest lies rather in how much it can extract for the benefit of Scotland." If its demands damage the rest of the UK, "it might regard this not as collateral damage, but as a benefit". Is this a price worth paying?