After a strange campaign all eyes on the political scrap in Scotland - John McLellan

Polls are showing that two of the five seats in Edinburgh are too close to call

It has been one of the strangest campaigns I can remember; the lack of enthusiasm for any of the parties and their leaders has been stark, and a deliberately vague Labour prospectus means the only people bracing themselves for guaranteed change are private school parents.

But with two different elections being fought north and south of the border, it does not make this contest any less exciting. Well, for political types at least. The resurgence of Labour, the Conservative collapse, a Lib Dem recovery, the draining of SNP support, and the emergence of hard right Reform, all add up to an election marking the start of a new epoch.

For those who just like a political scrap, Scotland is the place to watch, with relatively few foregone conclusions. The story of the day will be the extent to which the SNP has been able to defend its position, and in key rural and northern seats that might depend on the impact of the Reform Party’s rancid collection of xenophobes and secret separatists trying to cloak themselves with respectability to damage the only party capable of balancing Scotland’s left-wing establishment.

Polling shows Reform is irrelevant in Edinburgh, so its votes are just pointless anti-Conservative protests, and the story in Edinburgh will be whether the SNP emerges with any MPs at all, with two of the five seats too close to call.

In Edinburgh North and Leith, Electoral Calculus puts the SNP’s Deirdre Brock neck-and-neck with Labour’s Tracy Gilbert, and depends on who gets their vote out in an election where turn-out is likely to be poor.

It’s a similar story in Edinburgh South West, where the pollsters have city transport convener Scott Arthur on 36 per cent, four points ahead of SNP rebel Joanna Cherry, just one point beyond the margin for error.

Elsewhere, the likely outcomes are much clearer cut, and in Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, Tommy Sheppard is given only a 21 per cent chance of returning to Westminster, with Labour’s Chris Murray predicted to take 44 per cent of the vote, a 12-point lead.

Christine Jardine is expected to hold her Edinburgh West seat for the Lib Dems in reasonable comfort, with 36 per cent of the vote and a 77 per cent chance of victory as her SNP and Labour opponents are evenly split on 20 per cent each.

In Edinburgh South, Ian Murray has an unassailable 46-point advantage over the SNP’s new council group leader Simita Kumar, and must surely be appointed Scotland Secretary in Sir Keir Starmer’s first cabinet, even if former minister Douglas Alexander makes an expected comeback in East Lothian.

Elsewhere, ex-Gordon Brown adviser Kirsty McNeill is well ahead in Midlothian, as are communications consultant Gregor Poynton in Livingston and West Lothian councillor Kirsteen Sullivan in Bathgate and Linlithgow.

Then the hard work begins, and Chancellor-in-waiting Rachel Reeves will be under pressure from the likes of self-serving extremist junior doctors to abandon a steady but necessarily cautious approach. But an already improving economy, the continued normalisation of EU relations and the retreat of Nationalism can give the investment markets the stability they crave, and Scotland desperately needs.