This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.
One of the most compelling speeches I heard during the election campaign came from Lorna who introduced Sir Keir Starmer at a Labour event in Greenock.
She was clearly nervous, as anyone normal addressing a room full of TV cameras, journalists and politicians and their supporters should be.
Lorna told us she had grown up in care, that she’d fallen pregnant at 16 and that she had, in her mid-20s, decided to retrain as a welder.
“I’d never picked up a tool before, but I thought why not, I’d always preferred practical work.”
Earlier this year, she was awarded the Foundation Apprenticeship Advancement Scholarship by the Adam Smith Foundation and Fife College and will, when qualified, take up a job with Harland & Wolff.
“But it's not enough that I got on,” she told us. “Others need that chance. We need more opportunities for more young people across the country.”
She was backing Labour, she said, because they were promising to do just that.
Unless the polls have got this badly wrong, Sir Keir Starmer will be Prime Minister on Friday.
I hope he thinks of Lorna when he gets into No 10.
I hope too that the journalists in that very sweaty room at the end of May think of Lorna.
It’s not just the politicians who have an obligation to voters.
My colleagues and I at The Herald have been following John Swinney, Anas Sarwar, Douglas Ross, Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater around Scotland for the last six weeks.
This has been a long campaign. I’m knackered.
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I would moan, and God knows I love a moan – I had to give up a holiday – but it has been a privilege to cover this election for the paper.
It has been a privilege to hear from people like Lorna. And the lady who stopped me in the street in Perth after Douglas Ross’s speech. And the party activist in Sauchie who chatted as I waited for a chance to talk to John Swinney.
It will be a privilege to cover what happens next.
The ramifications of this election for the UK, for Scotland, are seismic.
What happens if Labour wins a so-called supermajority and the Tories are reduced to a rump as polls suggest? What if that doesn’t happen? What happens if the SNP manages to hold onto 20 seats? What happens if they get wiped out?
What about all those voters who don’t get to vote?
On Thursday, our live blog will be up and running from first thing in the morning and it won’t stop until Friday evening, at the earliest.
We’ll get the exit poll when it drops at 10pm and bring you the results from all 57 Scottish constituencies.
We’ll have staff at all the key counts and bring you the latest news as soon as we hear it.
We’ll also keep an eye on the rest of the UK as what looks set to be one of the most important elections in a generation unfolds.
Over the weekend, we’ll be publishing a special supplement with the results in full and news of the fallout.
We’ll speak to our unrivalled contacts and tell you what went right for the winners and what went wrong for the losers.
We’ll also tell you what we think it means for the 2026 Holyrood election.
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As The Herald’s new Political Editor, I follow in the footsteps of some of the giants of Scottish political journalism.
It is an honour. It is also utterly daunting.
What makes it a bit easier is that I’m lucky enough to have some of the best writers in the country working with me.
I cannot wait to read what Kathleen Nutt, Gaby McKay, Alison Rowat, Kevin McKenna, Helen McArdle, Brian Taylor, Dani Garavelli, Andy Maciver, Mark Smith and Neil Mackay make of this election.
You’ll find it on our website, on our social media and, of course, in the paper.
As I said, it’s not just politicians who have an obligation to voters. It’s us. A lot of promises have been made. Some of them rock solid, some of them pretty ambiguous.
We at The Herald have a job to do to make sure those promises are kept.
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