IT used to be so simple.

Come General Election time the outcome was either a Tory Government or a Labour government.

Now after five years of coalition government and the rise of Ukip, the growth of the SNP and Greens the permutations for who get the keys to number 10 are many and intriguing.

You could say there are more perms than the Scotland 1978 World Cup squad.

We could have the continuation of the Tory/LibDem coalition with another five years of the same austerity agenda, with the junior partners trying to take more lower paid people out of tax as a way of assuaging their conscience.

Or we could have a Conservative Majority government. Where David Cameron waves good-bye to Nick Clegg and he and George Osborne are off the leash running free, taking their mandate to go even further with public spending cuts, benefit raids and taking more from the poor to allow the rich to prosper.

There would be a Tory minority with support from Ukip or even a Tory/Ukip coalition where Nigel Farage is Deputy Prime Minister.

In which case it could be Europe we wave good-bye to and the trade, and structural funds that comes with it just so some people can feel more British.

It is hard to know who would be laughing most, Farage that he pulled it off or the rest of the world as Britain digs a moat and tells the rest of the world to keep out.

We could have a Labour majority, where Ed Miliband will have Number Ten to himself and have to come good on his promises and prove he is different to the Tories or stick to the austerity deficit reduction plan.

Either way he will be looking over his shoulder for five years from within as others look to oust him from within his party.

There could be a Labour/LibDem coalition where Nick Clegg, having come third successive elections finds himself waving goodbye to David Cameron and telling Ed Miliband he's his new best friend.

We would have to wait to see how much of a difference to just now that situation would be.

Labour could form a minority government with issue by issue support from the SNP and maybe the Greens.

How the sworn enemies of 2014 could possibly co-operate effectively at Westminster while still tearing at each other's throats in Holyrood with 2016 elections in mind is too much for this observer's mind to comprehend.

So while the outcome is going to be either David Cameron or Ed Miliband as Prime Minister, how that point is reached and which direction their government takes is dependent on the parliamentary arithmetic.

The decision as always is yours.