THE General Election may be 100 days away but the key themes of the campaign in Scotland are already clear.
The SNP have put three bold demands at the centre of their strategy.
They want devo max (Holyrood control over all policy areas apart from defence, foreign affairs and the currency), an end to economic austerity, and the UK's proposed new generation of nuclear weapons scrapped.
In most elections, this would appear an unrealistic hope.
But the SNP are riding high in the polls while Labour and the Conservatives remain neck and neck across the rest of the UK and under those circumstances, the Nationalists hope to persuade Scots they could hold the balance of power and wield considerable influence propping up a minority Ed Miliband government.
Jim Murphy, the Scottish Labour leader, insists his party is not looking for a deal.
His main General Election message will remain a simple warning that a vote for the SNP will increase David Cameron's chances of returning to Downing Street.
Between now and May 7 Mr Murphy will continue to argue that the Conservative leader could become the "accidental victor" if the SNP take Labour seats.
He marked the 100 days to go milestone yesterday by repeating some already well-worn sound-bites. "Only Labour is big enough and strong enough to defeat David Cameron. Scotland can protest against the Tories by voting for any party but only Labour can replace them," he said.
Labour promises to raise the top rate of income tax, freeze energy bills and crackdown on zero hours contracts apply across the whole of the UK.
Ed Miliband's pledge to invest an extra £2.5billion in health will also feature prominently in the campaign - as Scotland would receive a £250million share.
Mr Murphy has already vowed to spend £30million of it hiring 1000 new nurses though, of course, he would need to win next year's Holyrood election if he is to spend the money.
The Conservatives hope to improve on their solitary Scottish seat by scaring voters about the prospect of a Labour-SNP alliance. Ruth Davidson claims it would not only be left-wing, it would also undermine the Union.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats will attempt to revive their fortunes by taking credit for the Coalition's income tax cuts.
ends
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