Is there an election looming? You wouldn’t think it in this neck of the woods. With only 83 days to go until one of the most closely fought general elections in modern times, life in Gordon is pretty well normal. There are no signs up, nobody has chapped on my door yet (they’ll have to find me first) and I’ve had no leaflets either. In fact if I hadn’t gone out and looked I wouldn’t know who the candidates are, apart from Alex Salmond but more of him later. Some people say that we shouldn’t bother with opinion polls, bookies odds are the best indicators of the future. That being the case here’s what Ladbrokes thinks will be the outcome of the next general election in Gordon:

Ladbrokes betting Gordon constituency

Let’s compare that with the most recent Ashcroft poll:

Ashcroft poll Gordon constituency

As it stands it would appear that Alex Salmond is going to take this seat. So who are the other candidates and what have they been up to then.

Christine Jardine

In the orange corner for the Liberal Democrats we have Christine Jardine, or Justine as she likes to be known. Christine is the replacement for Malcolm Bruce, who is stepping down as an MP (and probably going to be ennobled soon). She has been out on the stump, leafleting, meeting with her prospective constituents and even having a bit of banter on Twitter with me! But I’m afraid she’s on a hiding to nothing, which is hardly surprising because we don’t know what she stands for apart from hating the SNP. Her party published a part of their election manifesto today, just the front cover though. Maybe there’s a clue or two there then:

LibDem Manifesto 2015 front cover

But the biggest problem for the Lib Dems is a lack of credibility, who can forget the Nick Clegg pledge on tuition fees which was ditched at the first sniff of a ministerial car:

Nick Clegg pledge

No one is going to forget that one, or the way that they enabled the tories ravaging of the sick, disabled and poor ever since. The standard refrain from Lib Dem apologists is that they curtailed the worst of the tory excesses but the truth is that if they had said no then none of them would have happened. However they are still in second place in the constituency race and there is some talk of tactical voting, but only from themselves and third parties who don’t have a vote anyway. I’m afraid that Christine is going to end up as an also ran, which is a shame because I quite like her and her predecessor. I wonder if she popped into the Labour candidate’s burger joint while she was out canvassing in Bucksburn the other day? That would have been ironic.

Next up is Labour and their candidate Braden Davy, who? He is the manager of a branch of a well-known fast food chain within the constituency, here’s a picture of him with the Scottish branch manager of the Labour party:

Feeling Braden Davy

That’s him in the middle in case you didn’t know. So what’s he been up to then? Nothing since 6th December 2014 according to the UK Labour website. Check out the small print at the bottom of the page. There’s no manifesto from Labour yet either, they have identified some “Issues” on their website but that is about all. Apart from that I’ve got no idea what he’s been up to since he blocked me but he would appear to have a mountain to climb.

Back in 4th spot we have the tory candidate Colin Clark. He’s a local loon who went to Turra school with one of my cousins. He has a website and a Facebook page, he seems to be most active on Facebook. He appears to stand for the landed gentry, those who love blood sports and is against land reform (who’d have guessed). He has ruled out any kind of tactical voting on his website and on his Facebook page.

Colin Clark

Out there in last place is the UKIP candidate David Coburn, who also happens to be Scotland’s only UKIP MEP.

David Coburn UKIP

He famously told us that we do not need immigration, we just need to breed more (except for him of course because he is openly gay).

So what of Alex Salmond, the man who strikes fear into the heart of the union? Not a lot really, there have been a few wee pieces of him canvassing in the local news. He also has his column in the P&J but apart from that next to nothing. If we were to compare the coverage of the scary nationalist to the coverage that Jim Murphy gets we would break the scales, the media is focussed entirely on Labour. But maybe, just maybe, this could be a ploy. After years of being monstered in the press the unionists foam at the mouth just at the mention of his name, so perhaps leaving it to Nicola Sturgeon to carry the SNP message is a shrewd move.

I hope things start heating up soon, perhaps once the weather gets a wee bit warmer?