The election vote is on 1 May

It is a carnival taking place against a background of war.

Our problems of low growth, NHS waiting lists, school standards, drugs, young offenders, recycling targets seem so detailed and selfishly domestic when hundreds of people are being killed in the sands of Iraq.

But what else can the home politicians do?

Not much singing

Only Tommy Sheridan from the Scottish Socialist Party wants the election to be a referendum on the war.

He launched his party's manifesto this week outlining 200 policies but none of them, he said, was as important as stopping " the slaughter of innocents in Iraq."

The others have admitted the war dominates everything but they have persevered with their domestic campaigns all the same.

We have had a week, then, of campaigning without many frills... not much singing, no jokes, no men dressed as foxes or hedgehogs, none of the usual election madness.

Jack McConnell says Labour has delivered

On Monday, Jack McConnell called his Labour troops together in Parliament Square in the centre of Edinburgh to unveil his three "We've delivered" billboards....free personal care, nursery places for all three and four-year-olds, free local bus travel for pensioners.

He also promised a new law making it easier for councils to close down clubs where illegal drugs have been found.

On Tuesday, the Scottish National Party handed out a little purple booklet detailing 30 Labour failures, one for each day of the campaign.

The Socialists, as I say, launched their manifesto, promising free school meals and a Scottish service tax on the rich to replace the council tax.

More power

On Wednesday, the Liberal Democrat leader Jim Wallace took off in his helicopter on his "flying start" tour of all eight regions.

He promised a good clean campaign.

And he dropped a little taster of his manifesto to come .....student nurses should have their debts paid off by the government so long as they come to work for the NHS in Scotland.

On Thursday, the Conservatives took over Murrayfield to launch their manifesto promising less central government and more power to headteachers and GPs.

David McLetchie promised smaller government

They earlier highlighted the spiralling cost of the Holyrood building, unveiling a poster beside it with the headline "Follyrood".

On Friday, the SNP formally launched their campaign, with a speech from John Swinney in the glass-walled foyer of the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh.

He promised free child care in the eight most deprived parts of Scotland.

Friday too was windmill day, when Robin Harper launched the Green Party's manifesto.

So the week was full of new ideas.

Bus passes

The Tories suggested that Scottish Water should be made into a mutual company, owned not by the government but by its customers.

Labour outlined plans for a Correctional Agency, to merge the prison service with the probation service.

It also announced plans for a national nursing agency.

It committed itself to free off-peak bus passes for pensioners, not just for local journeys but for inter-city journeys too.

John Swinney pledged free child care in deprived areas

And it promised to reduce class sizes to 20 in English and maths in the first two years of secondary school.

As to the personal stories that emerged in this first week.

Keith Harding and Lyndsay McIntosh shocked the Conservative Party by announcing they were leaving for the right-wing Scottish People's Alliance.

The Peterhead skipper George Geddes confirmed that he would be the only candidate for the new Fishing Party and he would contest the North East regional seat.

And Labour's candidate in Orkney, Yorkshireman Richard Meade, admitted that he had never visited the constituency.

Thus, the election campaign has got off to an uneasy start.