John Hipwood: Why I long for the way we were

After a campaign largely dominated by a smart (in both senses of the word) Scottish woman who is not even standing for election to the Westminster Parliament, it looks odd-on that there will not be a clear winner after the votes have been counted tomorrow night.

In The Way We Were, Streisand sang: "Can it be that it was all so simple then, or has time rewritten every line?"

When I covered my first election from Westminster in 1979, it really was very, very simple. Sunny Jim Callaghan had chickened out of an early election in late 1978, only for his decision to be mocked by the Winter of Discontent and by a strident Margaret Thatcher.

The party leaders put themselves about during the campaign, holding regular press conferences and meeting the public. How different from today's stage-managed party events.

Everyone had a good idea who was going to win on May 3, 1979. The only question was by how many seats. In the end, it was 43. Oh, how David Cameron or Ed Miliband would love a majority of half that come Friday morning.

Nicola Sturgeon, the current SNP leader, was just eight years old and, 36 years on, is now hoping her party will come out top of the pile in as many as 50 constituencies. I say 'hope' because the largely silent majority who voted against the break-up of the UK last year might yet have a quiet say in things tomorrow.

Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the remarkable rise in the SNP's popularity and membership since last September's independence referendum defeat has completely skewed the arithmetic for this election.

Even pro-Union politicians in England, Wales and Northern Ireland concede that Mrs Sturgeon has been a forceful figure in the campaign.

Senior Tories, when not blowing their own trumpet, have been keen to blow Nicola's bagpipes. If the SNP crush Labour north of the border, Mr Cameron has a much better chance of keeping his furniture at 10 Downing Street.

Despite the SNP's apparent dominance north of the border, the opinion polls suggest that it is too close to say who might be the next PM.

Conservative voters might wonder how this can be. After all, they argue, their party (with some important help from the Liberal Democrats, resilient British businesses and the selflessness of workers) has overseen economic growth unsurpassed in Europe.

What's more, Tories recall, they were up against a Labour leader who was lampooned wherever he went and was in a job which should have been occupied by his brother, David.

So, why did the Conservative campaign falter so badly, especially early on? Well, for a start, during the first weeks Mr Cameron and George Osborne had only one tale to tell – that the economy was doing well and that it would be a disaster to hand the controls back to the duo who trashed it in the first place, Two Eds Miliband and Balls.

This is an important story to tell, but not to the exclusion of everything else apart from personal attacks on the Labour leader.

The 'Miliband will stab the country in the back just as he did his brother' attack by Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, normally an effective spokesman, was as crass they come.

The most ludicrous of the pledges came from the Conservatives when they said they would push a law through Parliament saying there would be no increases in income tax, VAT or national insurance before 2020. How daft is that? Not only would it tie the hands of the Chancellor for five years, but it says to the electorate: "When I tell you I'm not going to put up taxes, I don't expect you to believe me, so I'm going to introduce an Act of Parliament forcing me to keep my promise."

Over the past week or so, Mr Cameron has begun to show a bit more passion, but voters should beware of politicians who keep telling them they are passionate.

Hoping to curry favour with Britain's vast army of football fans by saying you are a supporter of a particular team is about as transparent a ploy as claiming you used to drink 14 pints of beer a day, as William Hague once did.

An alleged Aston Villa supporter, Mr Cameron momentarily forgot and switched to West Ham. Perhaps it was the two teams' claret and blue strips which confused him. It was a good job he didn't attach himself to similarly clad Burnley, or Alastair Campbell, a fervent fan of the Lancashire side, would have been crying foul. When it comes to gaffes, however, it was the Labour leader's team who saved the best until last by unveiling the Edstone – a huge lump of limestone with the party's election pledges carved into it above Mr Miliband's signature alongside the Labour rose.

If he becomes Prime Minister, he wants to plonk it in the garden at No 10. You couldn't make it up.

While the odd mistake might make our political leaders seem more human, it's hard to warm to any of them. That includes the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, no matter how good an economic story they have to tell.

In any case, past evidence has shown that the electorate are much more reluctant to reward an administration for good economic news than they are to punish those deemed responsible for the opposite.

Although he has had a better campaign than might have been expected, I have always thought Mr Miliband suffers from the Neil Kinnock Syndrome. It's just difficult to picture him as political leader of the nation, fighting our battles, arguing our case in Brussels and in the wider world.

And then there's his on-off relationship with Nicola. OK, he won't enter into any formal coalition with the SNP. How could he when her party has made all those Labour MPs redundant?

But, if it means he can become prime minister, no serious observer believes he would not consult with the nationalists on a case-by-case basis in the Commons.

Weaker

Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats could still have an important role to play in any coalition talks, but from a much weaker position, given that they seem certain to lose Commons seats.

Mr Clegg will forever be remembered for breaking his pledge on university tuition fees, and his party will undoubtedly pay the price tomorrow for being the junior partner in an administration which has adopted Austerity as its middle name.

Many Lib Dem supporters seem set to turn to Natalie Bennett's Greens, who, in spite of a big increase in membership, will struggle to win more than one or two seats.

And what of UKIP and its Marmite (love/hate him) leader, Nigel Farage? There is no question that the UKIP threat has forced Mr Cameron to pledge an in-out referendum on the European Union, and it's also true that the party's stance on immigration chimes with many voters' feelings.

There have been inconsistencies, but (most of the time) Mr Farage gives the impression that he means what he says, whether or not you like what he says.

I heard my first cuckoo of the year on Monday. They are resourceful and determined birds, and a flock of them is heading south to occupy a hitherto undreamt of number of Westminster nests. Their dual aim is to keep the Tories out and, as soon as possible, break up the United Kingdom.

Call it backward looking, but I would rather have it The Way We Were. Politics was so much simpler then.