We were beginning to think you guys might be fed up of our boring election predictor chat, so we asked “The Burd” (aka Kate Higgins) if she’d like to contribute something.  We’re delighted she said yes – so here’s her take on the week’s election campaigning.

If you didnae know there was an election on, well you ken noo. Not content with chopping down forests to swamp us in leaflets, nor disturb our peace by daring to chap at our doors or phone while we’re at our tea, those pesky political types are now hogging the headlines, the airwaves and the ether. No platform is currently safe from folk in search of votes. It will all be over soon enough…

So how are they all doing at the end of the first full week of campaigning?

The SNP:
Ah yes, the shiny happy people. Who want you to vote on their record, and for their team and vision. Except when they’re putting Alex Salmond for First Minister on the regional vote ballot paper. The first leaders’ debate on STV was a cakewalk for the former First Minister who scarcely had to change gears to swat away the opposition. They have a strategy, they have money in the bank, they have a stellar endorsement, they have momentum in the polls, they have catchy themes like Fairness Friday (okay sort of catchy), they are winning the Twitter wars…

Yep, it’s all going swimmingly: what could possibly go wrong?

Well, they’ll have to do something to make that local income tax story go away – expect Labour to make more of the what have they got to hide line in the coming weeks if not. And they definitely have to do something about the Tories courying up to them and playing the funny woman to their straight man. The Scots don’t like the Tories remember?

Labour:
Who would have thunk that we’d be talking about Labour, with its indelible right to govern stamped through Scotland like a stick of rock, as the underdogs? They might be ahead in the polls but it’s now by the slimmest of margins; Iain Gray is struggling to get recognition never mind compete on equal terms with Salmond; their website is safe but dull; all their best policies have been pinched from the SNP, and they just haven’t got the money to compete in the shiny stakes.

But they have invested in their organisation and are doing what they said they would, fighting this election on the doorsteps. Prosaically, they are battling for every vote in every target seat, especially the Liberal Democrat ones. Their theme comes straight from Private Fraser, as portrayed in the just-launched higher taxes ball and chain poster.  And interestingly, for all that the content lacks a tangible, buzzy coherence, it does at least focus on people, unlike the issue-driven approach from the other parties.

They’re not setting the heather alight, but they’re getting on with getting on.

Scottish Conservatives:
This has been a good week for them, and in particular, their leader Annabel Goldie. After a god-awful start with the launch of their campaign overshadowed by candidate wars in Glasgow. While the other parties crowd around the centre ground, they have something distinctive to say, which at least gets them noticed, even if no one intends to vote for them. Or at least are not telling the pollsters they are. They might not have managed to get Annabel tweeting but there’s a slick media operation at work here. The Haguesque theme is clever, trumpeting a common sense approach to issues while emphasising how they have delivered for Scotland in the past.

No wonder their tails are up.

But scratch the surface and there lurks an unhappy party, with trouble in the ranks and leadership contenders circling like sharks. And while the Auntie Bella routine might go down well with the meeja, the Scots ain’t buying it. She may be having fun at Salmond’s expense but it’s a bit of a shortsighted tactic: don’t the Tories need the SNP to win if they want to go on delivering for Scotland?

Liberal Democrats:
Dearie, dearie me. This Scottish election might well mark a watershed in Liberal politics and for all the wrong reasons. Tavish Scott came across as earnest and instantly forgettable in the first debate; their policies are not distinctive enough from the big two to garner interest; the website is a mess. Mixing Westminster “achievements” with Scottish election missives doesn’t work and simply serves to remind the goodly voters why they are girding their loins to give the Lib Dems a kicking.

The Scots have been casting around for a scapegoat for the mess we are in and it looks like the Lib Dems are it. Can they go any lower in the polls? Well, there are still four weeks to go…

Scottish Greens:
This is where big really is beautiful: if two is a crowd, what hope for the fifth party in Scottish politics to make its distinctive voice heard?
Despite the strong message, articulate and punchy leader and effective pitch for the protest vote, the odds just seemed stacked against them in this election. Few of the reasons have anything to do with anything they are doing.

Leapfrogging the Lib Dems in the polls won’t do them any harm but they do need a bigger bang for their buck. They need media coverage and that means turning up the volume on a hot topic like nuclear power. Time too to stop playing at being a national party and go loco and regional – keep Patrick, replace Robin and anything else is a very good night.

My moment of the week?

Has to be Alan Cumming’s endorsement of the SNP – this is an A list celeb at the top of his game whose endorsement was thoughtful and articulate. Unlike others who have gone global, his graft for his achievements is something we still recognise and so, yet to snub him, his opinion will be respected. It made Labour’s wheeling out of Alex Ferguson look tired and formulaic.