As the final week of Britain’s election campaign begins with the two main parties virtually neck-and-neck, leading Tories think Ed Miliband may have finally had his “Kinnock Moment,” setting the party’s pledges literally, in stone.

But according to Andrew Sparrow at The Guardian,

Not content with affirming promises by hand, or by statute, he has hired a stonemason to carve them into a block of granite (or whatever it is).

At this stage of the election campaign we all need a bit of a laugh, and #EdStone has certainly provided some welcome entertainment. And some of the mockery is undoubtedly deserved. Announcing that this slab is heading for the Downing Street garden was probably a mistake, and, as John Rentoul argues, it would be easier to admire the pledges stone if some of the promises weren’t so vague.

Still, to his credit, Miliband is trying something imaginative to tackle the problem of trust.

Meanwhile, the FT reports that plans are already being made for electoral pacts in the event of a hung parliament.

(Financial Times / Tomorrow’s Papers Today)

As the prospect of a deadlocked result looms, the potential power of the SNP continues to be a key feature. The Scotsman looks at Scotland’s “starring role” in the election  – the Scottish party leaders featured in the final televised debate on Sunday night – and says, in an editorial:

Scottish politics has a new rule book, and Nicola Sturgeon wrote it. But – and this is the first uncertainty – it is by no means clear how this will translate into constituencies actually won. Local factors will play a strong role on Thursday. And here the predictions of 50-plus SNP MPs heading for Westminster may prove wide of the mark.

Steven Erlanger at the New York Times has a good piece contrasting Cameron and Miliband – and looking at what they have in common – concluding that Thursday could  likely spell the end of the political road for one of them.

There’s also an interesting piece by Independent editor Amol Rajan in Politico Europe on Blair The Pariah and how the former PM haunts those currently competing to occupy No 10. He writes:

The arc of Blair’s time at the top of British politics illuminates the great conundrum of his career — one that is, however, widely misdiagnosed. When most people turn their minds to Blair, they ask how it is that a man who won three elections, two of them with thumping majorities; who proclaimed a “new dawn in British politics;” who oversaw relentless economic growth; whose signature achievements included peace in Northern Ireland and a country much more at ease with ethnic and sexual minorities; and whose genius at communication won the hearts and minds of millions, could now come to be so reviled. Blair, once the cherub-faced savior of a country exhausted by Tory sleaze, has become guilty until proven innocent, his every move analyzed for selfish motives, his every profile in magazines intended to uncover wrongdoing and villainy.

The New Statesman has some research indicating the varying level of trust in the media among British voters. Yet, while the data indicate that traditional sources of political information may be diminishing, the power of the print media in agenda-setting remains hugely important.

(New Statesman/Freuds)

***

* US POLITICS * The GOP field is set to grow this week – or as Politico put it, the fringe is getting fringier.

Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, is expected to announce his candidacy at an event on Monday in Detroit. “I’m not 100% sure ‘politics as usual’ is going to save us. I think we are in a severe problem…a problematic situation,” he told CBS12 in West Palm Beach.

Meanwhile former HP CEO Carly Fiorina is seemingly getting ready to enter the race – via a Periscope announcement on Monday.

Among the “five things” NPR says we should know about her is that she was responsible for one of the most “infamous” political ads of recent years.

Former Gov Mike Huckabee is also set to announce he’s running, on Tuesday in his hometown of Hope, Arkansas. Byron York at the Washington Examiner wonders if he can recapture his 2008 momentum, but Matt Lewis at The Daily Caller seems to think Huckabee is “for real.”

Huckabee also embodies an “aw shucks” brand of populist conservatism that a lot of Americans might find refreshing. His video cuts to a debate clip of Huckabee saying: “I’m not a Republican because I grew up rich, I’m a Republican because I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life poor, waiting for the government to rescue me.”