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The Lib Dems game of chicken is short-sighted. While tactically it may make some sense, the SNP will never be the first to blink. For all that the fundamentalist-gradualist wars are long over, Alex Salmond just could not take his party or huge chunks of the SNP voters with him unless there was a referendum.

In the end, independence is more important to the SNP than opposition to even a referendum on independence is to the Lib Dems. Voters also see that. If the Lib Dems don't soften their position, they'll either have to u-turn after the election - not without precedent - or prop up an unpopular Labour party for another four years and face annihilation in 2011 (if they're not no-confidenced before that). Whether voters agree with independence or not, they won't blame the SNP for standing true to their raison d'etre.

Hmm Grant you seriously have NO IDEA how the Lib Dems think if you think for a moment that "Ming Campbell has decreed...". Nothing is more likely to rouse the antipathy of a Lib Dem member, activist or MSP than someone in the leadership DECREEing something :-)

No any Lib Dem leader knows full well that a leadership decree is doomed to failure. The Lib Dems are a party that works from the grassroots up, not from centralist control. Individual liberties and local freedoms are cherished and a leader as experienced as Ming well knows this.

So Brian,

were you at that infamous meeting with Labour reps (as reported in today's Scotsman) ?

Go on spill the beans!

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Yes it is strange that although the Lib Dems have one of the most devolved party structures of any of the Uk parties they are beholden to London masters on who they should have a coalition with.

The only thing the Tories have got right is branding the Lib Dems "political prostitutes".

The ultimate in Lib Dem prostitution will be if they enable a discredited Labour Party which loses votes and seats to cling to power.

Surely even the Lib Dems cannot sink THAT low?

Nicol Stephen for First Minister? You're having a laugh!

No surprises that the SNP have only managed to have a patronising and policy-free "women's day" event where Nicola turned up and did not much then.

The Nats are running this campaign as if they have something meaningful to contribute. Other than a goodness-knows-how-much tax rise, what are they offering working mums, or any mums for that matter?

Sometimes I feel this is a bit like the early worm;

First to knock is listened to
Next to knock, here鈥檚 number two
Third to knock, my mind鈥檚 adrift
Fourth to knock is given short shrift
Fifth to knock is pushing his luck
Sixth to knock, can get to鈥︹�︹��.

Sorry, but I think this will sum up most peoples opinion of canvassers; although I never claim to represent the silent majority.

As you will see I failed poetry, but the message is always sound.

Brian,

Can you not put a link on the Election site showing all the polls you can get your hands on as weel as the updated poll of polls?

thanks

Malcolm

I wouldn't trust the Lib Dems on anything they say, such is their record for hypocrisy and double standards.
I've just received their election leaflet and it states that the SNP have no chance in taking the Kilmarnock & Loudoun seat from Labour. "Everyone knows only the Lib Dems can" so they say. Rather bizzare considering the SNP polled over 11,000 last time to the Lib Dems 1,571.
I'm trying to find out who their candidate Ron Aitken is and where he's actually based.
Maybe one of those nice, honest Liberals can help me out.

The postings this time seem to have wandered off the subject! Doorstep canvassing has virtually died but then under Labour most people are so busy making money they hardly know who their next door neighbours are!
20 years ago as a young candidate in the 1987 general election, I remembered many people telling me I was the first Tory ever to canvass some areas of Shettleston. Usually I was met with good humour, even by those who disagreed with everything they thought I stood for. Only in Dalmarnock was I threatened and subjected to a minor violent attack and that was by Labour party canvassers who called me a carpetbagger, presumably because I lived in Ross-shire and most of them didn't know where anywhere north of Castlecarry arches was! The irony was I was visiting my father's aunt and uncle, Labour voters all their lives, who lived 5 floors up in one of the Allan Street multistorey flats. I was shocked to hear women in Tollcross tell me they didn't know who they were voting for because their husbands hadn't told them yet! Hopefuly those days have gone but many party workers, of any party, volunteers to a man and woman, must be more wary of being attacked when door to door canvassing now than 20 years ago. I remember in the Glasgow Hillhead By-election in 1982 it was suggested more than half a million pieces of paper were pushed through the letterboxes of the good citizens in Glasgow's west end. At least with telephone, internet and other methods of modern canvassing, a few forests won't require to be cut down so we can fill the recycling bins with party literature. As to the end result, the only person who must seriously believe Nicol Who? will be kingmaker must be Nicol Who? I have said throughout the campaign the LibDems will suffer like Labour and nothing in the past 3 weeks makes me change my mind. As the SNP are likely to take Gordon, Argyll and Tweedale from the LibDems and so many parties seeking regional votes, fewer not more seats are likely for Nicol and of course now we hear Tavish Scott (surely the LibDem's Gordon Brown to Nicol Who? as their Tony Blair)is plotting his removal. The 2 parties with most to gain and capable of bringing sane government are the SNP and Tories. Annabel was right to rule out a coalition and the SNP constitution prohibits it. But many SNP MSP's already work very closely with their Tory counterparts and several are honest enough to say they would welcome such a working relationship. IF the SNP are the largest party in terms of seats and popular vote, Labour and the LibDems could never expect the Scottish people to expect them to cobble together another coalition but Alex Salmond running a minority administration with the tacit support of Annabel Goldie in most policy areas except the constitution is indeed a tantalising prospect and it might finally break the stranglehold of former West of Scotland Labour councillors on the running of Scotland, a country which indeeds extends far north of Cumbernauld and far south of Motherwell.