LABOUR and the SNP have spent long periods of this election campaign being quite nice to each other. Jim Murphy started the year avoiding talk of independence for fear of alienating the former Labour-supporting Yes voters he hoped to woo. He wasn't particularly nasty towards the Nationalists, either, simply saying a vote for them would boost David Cameron's chances of victory.
Nicola Sturgeon reached out with open arms to Labour supporters. We want to support an Ed Miliband government, just make it bolder and better, she said. She even lifted Labour's tax plans wholesale for her own manifesto, signalling that a power-sharing deal of some sort was there to be done.
With five days to go to polling, however, hostilities have resumed and relations between the parties are as bitter as ever.
Mr Miliband's uncompromising comments on Thursday's Question Time election special - "If the price of having a Labour government was a deal or a coalition with the Scottish National Party then it is not going to happen" - have ensured a tempestuous run-up to polling day.
"If Ed Miliband is really saying he would rather have a Tory government than work with the SNP for more progressive politics, then it's final proof that Labour has lost the plot," said Ms Sturgeon.
"It will be the final nail in the coffin of Scottish Labour and I suspect Labour in other parts of the UK."
Mr Miliband hit back at the SNP during a rally in Glasgow last night.
Repeating his promise of "no pact, no coalition, no tie-in with the SNP," he added: "We cannot do a deal with a party that wants to break up the UK when we want to build it up.
"There is only one thing the SNP really want: and that's another referendum.That's their priority.That's their promise."
The rhetoric on both sides is becoming divorced from reality. Mr Miliband has not promised to step aside for the Tories any more than Ms Sturgeon has promised a referendum. But close your ears to the furious sound of battle and it's becoming clear how Mr Miliband hopes to operate a minority government after May 7 if he can muster the votes to get a Queen's Speech through the Commons.
He would be confident of taking that first step given Ms Sturgeon's promise to back vote against a Tory programme and back Labour's. His hardline stance reduces the chances of the SNP winning much in the way of concessions through a regular process of horse-trading. However, with day-to-day bargaining with the SNP off limits or kept to a minimum, Mr Miliband would have less room for manoeuvre. His policies could not be guaranteed support. In short, he would only go the Commons when he knew he could win, or when he felt defeat would rebound damagingly on his opponents. It would be a time for finely balanced judgements. It would also mean government from Whitehall rather than the Palace of Westminster to a very large extent.
As for the SNP, if its MPs are sidelined they will complain loudly that "Scotland's voice" was being ignored.
Their chances of achieving their big three demands of the election campaign - increased public spending, no renewal of Trident and progress towards full fiscal autonomy - would appear slim.
Everything will depend on the numbers of course.
The latest prediction from ElectionForecast, the team behind the BBC Newsnight Index, is for the Conservatives to emerge as the largest party with 280 seats.
Labour are predicted to win 268, the SNP 49, the Lib Dems 27 and the DUP eight.
If that is close to the actual result on Thursday, Mr Cameron would look to the Lib Dems and the DUP, despite saying he did not want to do a deal in a "darkened room with Nick Clegg".
Could a deal be done?
The Prime Minister says an in/out referendum on the EU would be a "red line" in any coalition negotiations. Mr Clegg says he would only back a referendum if more powers were transferred to Brussels, a demand Mr Cameron would find hard to agree to.
This long election campaign, the closest and most dramatic for a generation, is drawing to a climax. We might be wise to approach polling day with Election Forecast's disclaimer, printed in bold on its website, ringing in our ears: "We know there is substantial uncertainty in our forecast." Only in the early hours of Friday we we really know what's going to happen.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article