When the dust has settled on the 2015 General Election campaign it will be interesting to find out the extent to which the electorate was turned off rather than turned in to political debate.

As the focus has moved from any sensible discussion on policy to anticipation of horse trading on Friday it will be little wonder if many people tick their ballot paper in hope rather than as an act of reasoning.

Since the pundits tentatively but increasingly predict the Tories will win most seats it seems David Cameron's tactics, aided and abetted by the right-wing press south of the Border, and the SNP's expected success in Scotland, will pay off for the Tories. Mr Cameron is likely to get first dibs at forming the Government. However, his success is not a foregone conclusion.

Labour's optimistic wing believe they can scrape through the gates of No 10 but they know, too, that if they have many fewer seats than the Tories their credibility and legitimacy will be called into question.

That is why, as Mr Cameron goes on a charm offensive targeting Tory defectors to Ukip, Mr Miliband is straining ever sinew to win over Liberal Democrats throughout the UK and stem the haemorrhaging Labour vote in Scotland.

The best we can look forward to at this stage is protracted negotiations, mostly held behind closed doors. Whether it is Mr Cameron or Mr Miliband who is in poll position, the resulting government needs to reflect the will of the electorate, and if that is another coalition we shall have to live with it.

Nicola Sturgeon, the undoubted star of this unedifying campaign, warns that a Labour government formed without making a post-election deal with the SNP, could be illegitimate. It doesn't take much imagination to see where this argument is going. The volume on the grievance factor and the anti-English rhetoric will be turned up and will be the perfect launchpad for the SNP's 2016 Holyrood campaign.

Whenever the prime minister is in place, he (that it will be a he is the only certainty 24 hours before the polls open) needs to move fast to demonstrate how the Government is acting in the best interests of everyone in the UK. The Labour Governments' achievements, and there were many, between 1997 and 2005, sailed through the House of Commons mainly because Labour had such a massive majority. Even after the global financial crisis Labour continued to invest in the economy but little credit did they get for that.

Now, if Labour politicians have learned anything, they will try harder to engage the electorate. They do not find out by osmosis.

Ms Sturgeon has tapped well into Scotland's zeitgeist. She is responding to hope and aspiration, setting out a vision of new dawn. Margaret Thatcher did it before her; so did Tony Blair. Even Mr Cameron when he took on the Tory leadership challenged his colleagues and his country to take a leap of faith. His zeal faltered pretty promptly but there is a lesson from that for any budding politician.

Contrary opinions should always have a hearing. If the election results are as bad for Scottish Labour as the polls suggest, Labour's high command, past and present, might, just might, give Tam Dalyell and Bob Hughes, two former Labour MPs, an apologetic nod.

Mr Dalyell never wavered in his opposition to Labour's devolution plans; not that he was opposed to devolution per se. But he thought devolution based on national identity would constitute a "slippery slope" towards Scottish independence.

Bob Hughes, now Lord Hughes, was equally trenchant in his opposition. Mr Hughes, a prominent member of CND, chairman of the UK's anti-apartheid movement for the best part of 20 years and a great friend of the late Nelson Mandela, opposed devolution too, principally because he was first and foremost an internationalist. He was driven by the political imperative of delivering social justice and improving human rights at home and abroad. He wanted to eliminate division not create it.

Opponents of devolution were written off as political naysayers, and the rest is history, as they say. The Scottish Parliament came into being and, from that moment on, tensions arose between Holyrood and Westminster. MSPs played the grievance hand, and it was always on the cards that there could only be one winner if Scottish politics were considered only through the prism of Scottishness.

On May 8 every politician needs to be mindful of the UK electorate. Anything less will be a betrayal.