With opinion polls showing a significant SNP lead in Westminster voting intentions, Labour’s Scotland spokeswoman Margaret Curran was asked three times about a coalition deal, and three times refused to rule it out

So how confident are Scottish Labour leaders that Ed Miliband will win enough Westminster seats to form a majority government after the May general election? Not very, it seems.

Judging by their reaction to recent opinion polls, the prospects of Labour forming that previously unthinkable coalition with the Scottish National party – a party they fought bitterly against just five months ago in the independence referendum, now seem quite real.

Margaret Curran, the shadow Scottish secretary, was asked three times by reporters on Tuesday whether Labour would form a coalition with the nationalists to ensure Labour formed a government, and she declined to rule it out - three times.

And Tom Greatrex, the MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, where he and Curran had gathered a few friendly voters in a tea shop for a gentle bout of electioneering, even used a double qualification. He referred to a “Labour-led” government and a post-election scenario where Scottish Labour MPs were “part of” a future UK government; Labour, he acknowledged, was considering “various permutations” following the May election.



Speaking across homemade scones – plain and fruity, and pots of loose leaf tea in the Burnside Teapot, Curran was first asked about a coalition by PA Scotland’s political editor, Katrine Bussey. The exchange - which came a few hours after the pollsters TNS confirmed the SNP had 41% support in the May election, double their 2010 level, went like this:

Question from PA Scotland: To get rid of the Tory government then, would you go into coalition with the SNP? Curran: I’m confident we can form a majority government; that’s what we’re fighting for, as you would expect us to. Because to stop the things I want to stop the Tories from doing, I want a majority against them but also to implement the things I want to implement, I want a majority government but believe we can win that political argument. The Guardian weighed in: Are you ruling it out? Curran: I’m categorically saying I’m fighting for a majority government. The Guardian: So you’re not ruling it out? Curran: I’m categorically fighting for a majority government. We accept we’re behind in the polls and we’ve got a gap to close, but you do that on the basis of … it’s either David Cameron in Number 10 or Ed Miliband [because] that’s the choice people have got to make.

Greatrex, Labour’s shadow energy minister in Westminster and a former special adviser to three successive Scottish secretaries during Labour’s last government, including current Scottish leader Jim Murphy, knows enough about political language to choose his words carefully.

He and Curran insist that, even as the polls repeatedly show the SNP enjoying a 20 point lead over Labour as the election draws ever nearer, Scottish voters will agree on the doorstep that the central battle on 7 May is between Miliband and Cameron.



Voters understood every Labour MP who lost a seat helped the Tories edge nearer a majority, Greatrex said, before betraying that underlying failure of confidence that Scotland’s electorate would still, on the day, chose an SNP with a tested reputation for putting Scotland’s interests first.



It’s becoming clearer and clearer, day by day talking to electors. Is that people are starting to focus on what this election is about, and the election is about whether you have David Cameron still in Downing Street or a Labour-led government.

And the most fundamental point people are making is they don’t want David Cameron as prime minister, which is why you need to make the case for why you need to have Labour MPs and Scottish Labour MPs as part of that UK parliament and part of that UK government to make some significant changes that will affect people in Scotland as much as they affect other parts of the UK.

And then came the third nod towards an election result which forces Labour into a deal:

Which ever way it ends up you’re either going to have a Conservative prime minister or a Labour prime minister, that’s the reality of whatever various permutation of results happen.

Although Ed Balls, Labour’s shadow Chancellor, appears last month to rule any Lab-SNP coalition out, Miliband has been far less emphatic. On a visit to Scotland in late January, he refused to reject that possibility, saying only:

I have only one focus which is a majority Labour government.

And Labour activists in Glasgow have told the Guardian’s Libby Brooks that in private Murphy will acknowledge Labour will lose Scottish seats to the SNP - something he rejects in public.



Of course, it is not just the SNP whom Miliband could work with. The Liberal Democrats might have a greater claim and - despite their dire polling, more MPs on 8 May than the SNP. There are also the Greens, who might have several rather than just one MP.



So if Labour MPs are considering various “permutations”, here’s a question for Labour: what would be the most palatable option?



A coalition with the Lib Dems who can command, unlike the SNP, support across the UK and have valuable government experience, but could also very well be run still by the deeply unpopular Nick Clegg and tarnished by their Tory alliance?



Or one with their arch rivals, the SNP - whose price for a deal (much greater freedom for Holyrood and a stop to Trident’s replacement) would likely alienate English voters and sharpen their opponents’ attacks on Miliband’s judgement? Then again, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon is investing a lot of political energy in positioning her party as Labour’s natural allies. She seems a willing suitor.