General election diary: SNP manifesto | Miliband

Shocking images of Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy blatantly moving the goalposts. Picture: Neil Hanna

THE SNP launches its manifesto in Edinburgh; Ed Miliband on ‘yoof dialect’ and Labour beat the Conservatives in a penalty shoot-out to raise money for Motor Neurone Disease campaigner Gordon Aikman

Welcome to the first instalment of The Scotsman’s General Election diary, where we’ll be looking at the lighter side of politics in the lead-up to May 7.

The World is Nat Enough

The biggest story of the day was undoubtedly the SNP launching its manifesto at Edinburgh’s International Climbing Arena (or Bond villain lair, as Jamie Ross of Buzzfeed put it) in Ratho.

Among the manifesto’s pledges were bringing an end to austerity, voting for increased funding for the NHS across the UK and getting rid of the bedroom tax.

And there’s just one mention of independence - “We believe in independence but that is not what this election is about” - but it did get a huge cheer at Ratho.

Elsewhere, the party would scrap Trident and push to raise the minimum wage to £8.70 over the next five years as well as backing home rule for Scotland, along with reducing child poverty and boosting free childcare.

You can read the manifesto in full here >>> Stronger for Scotland: SNP Manifesto 2015

E Milly on yoof slogans

BACON rolls, typos in tweets and lurking outside doors: Ed Miliband is often lambasted for his awkwardness. But fair play to him for his grasp of the language of the young people.

In an interview with Time Out London magazine, the Labour leader was asked if he knew what ‘Yolo’ meant.

(It means ‘You only live once’ - a sort of ‘carpe diem’ slogan for the 21st century).

Mr Miliband’s responded: “That is a good philosophy for politics! It’s about a sense of adventure and doing what you want. Wow! I’ll use it from now on!”

His aides soon put him right though, with a well-placed diplomatic silence.

Monster Raving Loony policy?

IN response to the SNP’s pledge to raise the minimum wage to £8.70 an hour, David Coburn, Ukip’s leader in Scotland, tweeted: “SNP only offered to increase minimum wage to £8.70 an hour - Scottish Greens £10 an hour - Monster Raving Loonies £25 an hour.”

No mention of Ukip’s projected minimum wage, however...

Gavin Brown! Iain McGill! Murdo Fraser! Your boys took one hell of a beating!

LABOUR and the Conservatives went head-to-head in a penalty shoot-out today to raise money for Motor Neurone Disease campaigner Gordon Aikman.

The last time we had a political penalty shoot-out, Better Together defeated Yes Scotland, unknowingly predicting the actual outcome of the referendum.

This time, Jim Murphy was seen moving the goalposts with Ken Macintosh’s help, a move which clearly benefited Labour as they swept the Tories aside.

Cue many football-related tweets about ‘putting the Tories on the spot’ and ‘beating them again on May 7’.

You can donate to Gordon’s Fightback here >>> justgiving.com/gordonaikman

Register to vote early, register to vote often

TODAY is the deadline for registering to vote in the election. You’ve got until midnight tonight to make sure you can have your say in what promises to be one of the most interest elections in years.

You can register to vote here >>> gov.uk/register-to-vote

News in brief...

• Hats off to Tory candidate for Totnes Sarah Wollaston, who backed same-sex marriage and is taking on ‘Coalition for Marriage’ who are delivering leaflets to urge support for what they call ‘true marriage’. Sarah has publicly declared: “Thanks bigots, I’m proud of that vote!”

• Remember the hen party that gatecrashed Ed Miliband’s arrival at a campaign meeting in Chester last week? Bride-to-be Nicola Braithwaite has revealed she was voting Labour in the General Election anyway, but meeting Ed made her more enthusiastic.

• Piers Morgan today declared Nicola Sturgeon the most dangerous woman in the world. Even better, a photo caption on dailymail.co.uk referred to her as a ‘diminutive but sharp-witted woman’ who has ‘rampaged through the UK election campaign like a mini-Godzilla’. We reckon she’d be quite chuffed with that.

• The latest polls suggest the SNP are ahead in Edinburgh South - the constituency where they got the lowest share of the vote in 2010. The party is so far up to 37 per cent from 8 per cent. They’re also ahead in Edinburgh North, according to Lord Ashcroft’s polling.