AS the General Election campaign enters its final, frenetic week, so we’re seeing more and more scare stories and negative campaigning from the Westminster parties. If before they were unbelievable, they’re now truly verging on the ridiculous.

At the weekend, The Sun printed a story – which, as I read it, we were meant to take seriously – that Nicola Sturgeon was not to be trusted in politics because she cut the hair off her sister’s Barbie/Sindy doll when she was a child.

Rightly and unsurprisingly, Nicola laughed the whole thing off, taking it in the spirit it wasn’t intended. It showed very clearly though, that the Westminster parties and some media, seem to be in a sort of panic about the prospect of the SNP having a say in the way the UK is governed, and will try to do whatever they can to stop it.

We’ve seen much of this before of course, during the referendum campaign. Day after day, the Yes campaign was attacked at every imaginable level, political and personal. Some of the scare stories we had to put up with then were, frankly, beyond risible.

But now, even if you didn’t think it was possible, we’re witnessing yet more surreal levels of negativity. In recent days, as well as the nonsense about Nicola’s childhood times, we’ve also had a Tory poster of Alex Salmond as a pickpocket and Theresa May’s so-called warning that the SNP and Labour working together would be “the biggest constitutional crisis since the abdication”.

There are also constant personal remarks on Nicola – the way she dresses; her political and personal history; the fact she’s never had children. The last of these jibes is particularly incoherent, as I was asked at a hustings recently how I could be an MP as I’ve four kids to look after. It seems you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

It really is hard to believe just how unsavoury such tactics are becoming. The consistent tightness of the polls showing Labour and the Tories neck and neck and the likelihood of a hung parliament are pushing both these parties into seemingly new levels of unpleasant, patronising, misogynistic campaigning in which election promises are thrown round like confetti and hysterical scare stories abound

And it’s not just these two parties. The Lib Dems, still staring potential decimation in the face, and Ukip are just as bad.

Unsurprisingly, all these attacks on the SNP are proving to be completely counter productive. The more these ridiculous scare stories are trumpeted, the more support for Scotland’s party seems to keep rising. The gap in the polls continues to widen, rather than narrow.

This is a reflection of what we’ve known for a long time: that voters are turned off by the aggressive, macho politics of confrontation, negativity and cynical cajolement.

There was no better example of the difference between the Westminster and SNP campaigns than last Saturday morning. While Jim Murphy was being interviewed on the Clyde outside BBC Scotland with maybe a couple of dozen supporters around him, the First Minister was launching her women’s pledge in the centre of Glasgow, with literally hundreds of people packing Buchanan Street to hear her.

Amid upbeat, energetic scenes reminiscent of the last days of the referendum campaign, Nicola’s message was positive – and above all, aspirational. She once again stressed her priorities of fairness and gender equality.

In her address to the crowd, she talked eloquently of building towards a day when women faced no glass ceiling on their ambitions; of support through free education, free childcare and raising the minimum wage; and of ensuring that no girl grows up or woman lives in fear of abuse and violence.

This was common sense politics at its most positive, attractive and visionary. No angry accusations, false promises or histrionics, but a thought out, measured, intelligent policy platform for our times. It was all about what women can and should be doing at every level in society, and it was a message which resonated profoundly.

If we carry this bottom-up, sensible, liberating, people-first programme to Westminster on May 7 – and we can and we will – then we can hopefully help to restore the faith of ordinary voters everywhere in representative politics.

By taking maturity to Westminster and working to reconnect people with government, we may well begin the process of bringing a refreshed and vibrant democracy to a wearied and possibly cynical UK electorate.

To me, that’s another compelling dividend from having a strong SNP team of MPs.

So let’s make sure then when May 7 comes, that’s exactly what we get.