Unholy Alliances.

Kenneth (Lord) Baker met me once. In today’s Guardian he’s reported as suggesting the possibility of a Labour-Conservative ‘grand’ coalition government being required to prevent the SNP, who will have won almost all seats in Scotland, threatening (again) the break-up of the United Kingdom.

In the same breath – presumably keen to move on from the debate in the papers about debates on TV – David Cameron has challenged Ed Miliband to rule out a coalition-of-sorts with the SNP for the same reason.

As the polls currently stand a hung Parliament is the likely outcome. Labour or the Tories could lead the next government dependent on the number of seats won by smaller parties.

The SNP has already declared that a deal with the Tories is a non-starter and that a deal with Labour could result in ‘more effective government’. You can see what’s bothering chicken Dave.

There is little prospect, with a near wipe-out of the Lib-Dems on the cards (hurrah!), of Cameron being able to stay in number ten without being lucky on the day and then having to do a deal with pretty much everyone other than Labour and the SNP, including UKIP and maybe, if the numbers are very tight, even including Sinn Fein who might just choose to turn up this time around. Toxic.

There is little prospect of Miliband making it into number ten without the price being a second, probably successful, referendum on Scottish independence and the break-up of the Union. Toxic.

Hence the suggestion of a unionist Labour-Conservative coalition. Is there another way to keep the country in one piece?

In our fairy story nonsense of a nation the Queen, surely the number one unionist, asks someone to seek to form a – majority or minority – government. How about on May 8th she calls in Alex Salmond and offers him the chance to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, seeking support where he can find it on an issue by issue basis (Confidence and Supply they call it), just so long as all talk of independence for Scotland is forgotten for as long as he chooses to remain in the job?

You read it here first. And only most likely.