Ah well, we'll obviously make no headway here.

You asked for "evidence". I posted links to evidence. Then you complain about me posting too many links. Do you want the evidence or not? If you don't, then why challenge me to produce it? If you do, then how do you propose I provide it if I can't post links?

You claimed that a search for "people put off labour by fear of SNP" leads to lots of "evidence". Except I can't see it. You don't post a single link to one of them, let alone the numerous you say exist. I see plenty of news articles published prior to the election, but none published afterwards that analyse the actual vote (as opposed to the pre-election polls) and conclude that the SNP had a measurable impact on the English vote.

You say that history is littered with PR campaigns that worked, as well as ones that didn't. Of course it is. Are you really suggesting I was denying that obvious fact? I was pointing out there is no way of knowing whether a campaign was successful until evidence is presented afterwards. That hasn't been done in this case; so the mere fact of the campaign's existence cannot be used to demonstrate the SNP's influence.

I wasn't "conflating" your posts with anyone's. I was trying to discuss an issue... not individual opinions. The initial claim (made by someone else) was that the SNP (or fear of them) had sufficient influence on the English vote that it "allowed the tories in".

I pointed out that in order for that to be true; it would mean that the popularity of the SNP played a part in shifting the vote in Tory/Labour marginals. There is no evidence that happened.

You quote me as saying: "There is absolutely no evidence that the people of Bolton West shift their political allegiance based upon the perceived popularity of the SNP."

I'm not saying you can't find one or two individuals in Bolton who allowed the SNP to influence them. But that obviously is not what someone means when they talk about "the people" of a constituency shifting political allegiance. In the context of an election analysis, it means a collective shift that affects the result. Is it really necessary to spell that out?

As for the analogy with the UKIP's anti-immigration campaign? I genuinely thought that was self-evident. I'll try to explain it better if it doesn't make sense to you...

The tory PR campaign tried to scare English voters by pointing out the increasing strength of the SNP north of the border. "A vote for Labour might allow the SNP to have some power as a junior coalition partner in Westminster, and that would be terrible" - they said*

UKIP tried to scare voters by claiming that increasing numbers of immigrants are heading to the UK (and Europe) - and that would be terrible.

In both cases; the core fact was true... the SNP were strong in Scotland; and there are more immigrants heading for the UK. However, whatever divisions are being created by those PR campaigns are being created by the people running the campaigns... not the people they are about.

That was the point of the analogy and I don't think I can explain it any better than that.

As I say though; this is likely going nowhere. You openly challenged me to produce "evidence" (of a negative remember!) and then complained that I was "posting a welterweight of website links".

And let's be clear, I wasn't just "link spamming". I presented a position along with the links that backed it up. If that isn't what you asked of me, then I guess we really don't understand one another.

I'm sorry about that.

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* The actual campaign was hypocritical nonsense on so many levels; but that's a trait shared with much political propaganda... on all sides.