The SNP is set for a landslide victory in Scotland, it could take as many as 56 of Scotland's 59 seats - and it is highly unlikely that it will win less than 50. This could put the party in a situation where it holds the balance of power as parties negotiate to form a government during the second week in May.
While unveiling the manifesto, party leader Nicola Sturgeon, and the SNP made a series of concessions to the Labour Party by endorsing its key tax policies including its proposed mansion tax and bankers' bonus tax - and its pledge to abolish zero-hour contracts.
Yellow areas are likely to vote SNP, theguardian.com
The manifesto also promises significant public spending increases - it reads: "SNP MPs will demand an end to austerity. We oppose further spending cuts and propose modest spending increases - of 0.5 per cent above inflation - in each year of the next Parliament. Under our plan, the deficit will still reduce each year, but there will be at least an additional £140bn across the UK.'
Conservative Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, described the SNP manifesto as "the most expensive ransom note in history" - while the front page of today's Daily Mail brands Nicola Sturgeon "the most dangerous woman in Britain" and claims that the SNP intends to "blackmail England."
These SNP policies include increases in medical spending, the building of more affordable homes and increases in welfare spending.
Labour and the SNP share a common enemy in the Conservative Party - but Labour has kept the SNP at arms length, as captured in this exchange during last week's opposition leaders debate when Ed Miliband ruled out the possibility of a Labour/SNP coalition - mainly due to the SNP's stance on Scottish independence.
Ms Sturgeon's speech yesterday again sought to clarify that the issue of Scottish independence is currently off the table, saying:
"I am offering to people elsewhere in the UK a genuine hand of friendship. I'm not trying to hide my political beliefs as far as independence is concerned."
But it is not just the tabloid press that is taking a strong line on the SNP manifesto, a piece run in The Economist has described is as the "second-longest suicide note in history" - the longest being Labour's hard-left 1983 manifesto.
Just published: @JeremyCliffe on the SNP manifesto, the second-longest suicide note in history http://t.co/nHf0EvQvxl pic.twitter.com/hCQu88DO5e
— The Economist (@EconEurope) April 20, 2015
This article has a different argument though - it says that the SNP could have gone much further left - and that what the party ended up with a platform which is too closely aligned to Labour, and that undermines the gains that the SNP has won since the independence referendum.
Jeremy Cliffe concludes that reading the SNP manifesto, one is "overwhelmed by a single impression: no document in recent British history has better epitomised the instincts of the average Labour MP."
