Those who catastrophise about the fate of smaller parties within coalitions may be betraying their southern perspective
At the press conference to announce the SNP’s landmark cooperation agreement with the Scottish Greens, Nicola Sturgeon could scarcely contain her glee. And no wonder. What better way to burnish her government’s environmental credentials at the UN climate conference, Cop26, in Glasgow than to trumpet its willingness to engage in “grownup politics” for the betterment of the planet?
In Westminster, Boris Johnson is struggling. Earlier this month, a new climate breakdown report reinforced the severity of the crisis. Yet civil servants fear he has left it too late to push the world’s worst polluters to cut their greenhouse gases in order to meet the Paris agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Having initially refused to give Sturgeon a seat at the Cop26 negotiating table, the prime minister must be spitting feathers at the way she has turned the spotlight on her government at his expense.
