Leader: Answers in short supply as campaigns draw to a close

AFTER one of the longest ever campaigns for the Holyrood parliament, has it been worth it? Aside from one or two campaign incidents and quotes, voters have been notably disengaged after almost two months of electioneering.

The campaign has left deep uncertainty and glaringly unanswered questions, and it would be a miracle if the last few days were to provide useful answers.

It is said of elections that voters are strongly resistant to bad news and only want to hear how the parties will deliver ever-greater spending benefits. This is true, though up to a point. In this campaign, many voters well know about the state we are in; that the Scottish Government, whoever comprises it, will have to make unpleasant and unpopular spending reductions.

Voters have been deeply sceptical of the promises of jobs and efficiency savings and sheltered or protected spending areas. They have had warnings of public spending austerity held over them for the best part of two years and want an end to the uncertainty that is casting a deepening shadow over household budgets and spending decisions. As this election campaign draws to its close, are they really much wiser as to what will unfold after Thursday?

Where and how will the spending reductions be made? How can the money be found for a further period of council tax freeze without squeezing budgets elsewhere? How is free university education for Scottish students to be funded when the universities themselves are openly critical of the arithmetic offered by those parties who have been campaigning against tuition fees?

And what of those mooted billions of efficiency savings? Can these new efficiency gains really fund new spending commitments? Or will they, as the latest paper from the Centre for Public Policy for the Regions suggests, barely cover the cost of the continuing rise in service demands, never mind yield up money that can be spent elsewhere?

For all the sound and fury of the roadshows, the hustings and campaign photo-ops, there is good reason to suspect that much of the material in these competing manifestos is going to end up in the shredder of the Christie Commission which will be advising on spending reduction.

Above all, are voters any the wiser on how the SNP intends to meet what it insists is its core obligation - a referendum on independence? Would a re-elected SNP administration seek to honour this at an early opportunity or might it play cat and mouse with the parliament and voters until it sees a favourable window of opportunity? Unionist parties may well come to the view that it would be in Scotland's better interests to force this issue and seek an early referendum rather than endure four years of politicking.

Clarification on any of these issues in the final days of this election would be welcome.