When will Ed get the chills for Nicola?

Yesterday, I suggested we were in the era of national tactical voting. That is, the constituent nations of the UK make a pact and decide which party each nation should vote for. So Scots vote SNP, Welsh vote Plaid Cymru and the English vote Labour. I further suggested that if you can't quite bring yourself to vote for the party your nation's allocated, then vote Green.

In last nights BBC debate, Ed Miliband rather ruined the idea by behaving like a little school boy who thought he had to act tough in front of his friends by basically dumping Nicola Sturgeon. It reminded me of that scene in the movie Grease where John Travolta discover's Olivia Newton-John is now at his school but, because he's in front of his friends and it's all very public, he pretends he couldn't care less about her.

We all know that in that movie, events finally force John Travolta's character to come clean and publicly profess his love for Olivia Newton-John's character.

To be honest, shaking his head and dumping Nicola at the end of the debate last night made Ed Milibad look as clumsy and as immature as John Travolta in those opening scenes. I think he rather shot himself in the foot by doing it.

But is this a gender thing, I wonder?

Contrast his behaviour with the three ladies on the stage. Leanne Wood of Plaid Cymru, Natalie Bennett of the Greens and Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP all had no embarrassment about professing their love for each other and their willingness to put Ed into 10 Downing Street. At the end of the debate, the three ladies even had a group hug together - leaving Ed Miliband and Nigel Farage to look like floundering, awkward school boys as they each stood alone at either end of the stage.

Men are generally said to be competitive and women to be collaborative. We certainly saw that old adage being played out last night. Personally, I feel a warmth in my soul that Westminster might actually reflect the family of four nations that the UK is.

But if Ed Miliband wants to be part of that, he's going to have to do what John Travolta's character Danny did in order to win Olivia Newton-John's character Sandy - that is, change his clothes and come out singing:

I got chills.

They're multiplyin'.

And I'm losin' control.

'Cause the power

you're supplyin',

it's electrifyin'!

We'll wait and see if reality follows fiction and if Ed can mature during the last three weeks of this election campaign.

To be honest, I have my doubts.