Scotland

It's the Conservatives’ turn to try and bounce back today. After the ‘dead cat’ thrown onto Ed Miliband’s kitchen table, it looks as if Tories parties will be hoping to return to policy — not slashing non-doms — and move away from personal attacks. To help guide you through the melée of stories and spin, here is a summary of today’s main election stories. 1. Polls everywhere, but not a lead in sight No fewer than five opinion polls were released yesterday, three of which showed Labour leads while two had the Conservatives ahead. The Guardian went as far to deem Thursday as ‘The day the polls turned’, but there is still no clear frontrunner at this stage.

It's nice to be noticed. I cannot recall the Scottish portion of a UK general election ever exciting this much interest from folk unfortunate enough to live south of the Tweed. I don't blame southrons for wondering just what in god's name is happening up here, however. These are uncharted waters for all of us. And yet, despite that, it is a little less revolutionary than it seems at first. Consider these numbers: 39, 33, 29, 32. That's the share of the constituency vote won by Labour in the four elections to the Scottish parliament. And then there are these numbers: 29, 27, 33 and 45. That's the share won by the SNP.

When I watch Nicola Sturgeon exercising her newfound charm and confidence, I experience a pang of intimate regret. Some 15 years ago — when she was a new MSP and the SNP’s shadow education minister — we both appeared on a late-night Scottish television show in Aberdeen, in which guests were invited to defend controversial propositions in front of a live audience of students. My task was to argue that poorer countries should not have their debts forgiven (then the theme of the Millennium ‘Jubilee’ movement, now a key argument about Greece) as a result of misplaced rich-world guilt; needless to say I took a pasting. The future first minister made a worthy but jokeless case for teaching Gaelic in primary schools, and provoked a lot less shouting.

Earlier this month the Labour party were accused of not including pictures of Ed Miliband on campaign literature out of fear that the mere image of their party leader could scare off voters. Now Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy appears to have gone one step further and simply not mentioned Labour at all. Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, claims that campaign leaflets for Murphy fail to mention the Labour party once: I get @JimForScotland leaving Miliband off his leaflet but why has he left off @scottishlabour? Not a single mention. pic.twitter.

Given that Gordon Brown has hardly been seen in the Commons since losing power five years ago, it was a bit rich of him to say goodbye now. But the SNP uprising has started — it looks set to claim his own seat of Kirkcaldy — and so he's off. In his final speech to the House of Commons today, he lamented the gradual breaking apart of the UK which was, of course, started by his own party. After indulging in niceties towards Parliament as an institution, the Speaker and his constituents, Brown promised to devote his efforts away from Westminster to ‘the idea of Britain’ and attacked the Conservatives' plans to devolve powers to England: ‘I leave this house feeling a huge sense of gratitude, but also with some concern.

Will the SNP eviscerate Scottish Labour? A new poll from the Guardian/ICM today suggests once again that the SNP is on course to do very well in the upcoming general election — and is currently on course to take 29 seats from Labour. As with Lord Ashcroft’s polling earlier this month, the numbers suggest that the swing from Labour to the SNP shows no signs of ebbing away. The SNP is currently on 43 per cent, the same as the last ICM poll in December, while Labour are 16 points behind on 27 per cent. The Scottish Tories are up one point to 14 per cent while the Lib Dems are languishing on six per cent. Interestingly, the Guardian’s analysis of the poll notes that if this swing were uniform across Scotland, the SNP would take 43 of Scotland’s 59 seats.

Last year Russia Today launched a poster campaign with a fanciful strapline: ‘This is what happens when there is no second opinion’. The extraordinary implication is that the conflict could have been avoided, if only we had listened to Putin. This is such an obvious fallacy that it’s hardly worth dwelling on. But RT (as it now likes to be known, as if people don't know what the 'R' stands for) is producing lightly disguised state propaganda. The viewers know it and so do the mercenaries that make it. In contrast, Scotland’s new pro-independence daily newspaper – ‘The National’– is written with earnest conviction. Its contributors are devout believers, and that’s what makes it so hilarious.

It’s dangerous, in my line of work, to promise you’ll be anywhere by 8 p.m. I made this mistake recently, saying I’d turn up to a dinner after a Budget discussion — a ‘quad’ meeting, where I sit with the Prime Minister, George Osborne and Nick Clegg. We’ve been doing this for five years, so have come to know each other pretty well. Not that we all agree; on the night in question, Nick was angry about something (I won’t say what) and our meeting ran on. I headed back with him to Dover House, a magnificent building where I was based during my tenure as Scottish Secretary. A great job: I enjoyed each of the 17 days I spent in it. The dinner, organised by the Lib Dems, was fun.

Later today, Vince Cable will launch his traditional conference attack on the Tories. He’ll denounce them for their positions on Europe and immigration. But his pre-conference interview in The Guardian will have, for once, delighted the Tories. For in it, Cable rules out a deal with the SNP. Now, this is a turn-around from Cable. Just last month, he said "We're perfectly happy to work with the SNP. There's no taboo on the SNP.