The Sun has given birth to this front page, endorsing the Conservatives in this election:

In it’s editorial the paper attacks Labour, explains a Ukip vote will erode the chances of the Tories, calls Russell Brand a “39-year-old teenager”, and adds:

If you’re among the 20 per cent of voters still picking a side, don’t swallow the Left’s ridiculous propaganda about the Tories.

Adding:

David Cameron and his party have not got everything right. They are too aloof. Wages are too low. But austerity was not designed by callous Tory toffs to punish the poor, as left-wingers childishly claim.

And concludes:

Here’s the real reason:

Because this time they are by far the best bet for the prosperity and happiness of millions of ordinary people who read The Sun.

It really is that simple.

Zac Goldsmith, the Tory candidate for Richmond Park and North Kingston, had this to add on Russell Brand according to the FT’s George Parker:

Now there’s a creative comparison:

Senior figures in the Scottish Labour Party have demanded Jim Murphy resign after the election, according to the Telegraph. “A man who leads us to disaster in a general election has then got little prospect of leading us to enormous success in a Scottish election,” one Scottish Labour MP reportedly said.

The Conservatives have received praise from 90 tech entrepreneurs, who have written to the Guardian to say it would be bad for jobs, growth and innovation to “change course”. The company executives, who endorsed the Conservative-led government for supporting the tech industry, include Brent Hoberman, a co-founder of Lastminute.com and Made.com as well as a non-executive at Guardian Media Group; Andrew Fisher, executive chairman of Shazam; and Tim Steiner, chief executive and co-founder of Ocado.

Other signatories include David Cameron’s digital adviser and Tory peer, Baroness Joanna Shields; Alex Chesterman, chief executive and co-founder of Zoopla; and Holly Tucker, founder and president of Notonthehighstreet.

Labour is unhappy about the make-up of the audience at Thursday’s BBC Question Time event.

Party sources said it is another example of the BBC giving into Cameron’s demands, as 50% of the audience will be from government parties. The split is Conservative 25%, Labour 25%, Lib Dem 25% and don’t knows 25%.

Ed Miliband is taking part in the Question Time event last, after David Cameron and then Nick Clegg. They will each face 30 minutes of questioning from the studio audience, who will submit questions in advance and on the night.

Hosted by David Dimbleby, it will be broadcast from Leeds Town Hall from 8pm and is being shown live on BBC One.

Labour consider Cameron has previously got his own way because he refused to debate head-to-head with Miliband and the broadcasters shied away from empty-chairing him.

Ed Miliband was on Classic FM earlier, where he told host Nick Ferrari about the importance of music education and his own struggle to learn the violin. Here are some of the key points from the interview:

Miliband said music education is “something that needs to be valued” and can be “an incredible liberation” for many children:

I think there’s a danger that in education at the moment we undervalue these kind of creative subjects. I think we undervalue artistic subjects. Music, for example can be an incredible liberation for lots of kids and it can bring out extraordinary talent. It is an important thing and it is something that needs to be valued.

Miliband said he learned to play the violin with the Suzuki method – but he was “terrible.

For four years I schlepped away playing the violin and then at the age of 11 I said to my mum, ‘I’m really fed up with playing the violin and I’m not really very good at it – why are you forcing me to do it?’ And she said, ‘I don’t want you to be playing the violin, I don’t think you’re very good at the violin either, I thought it was because you wanted to do it,’ at which point I promptly gave it up. I don’t think I had any natural talent but I don’t think I practised very much, that’s my excuse.

Miliband said he used to secretly watch Dallas rather than do his homework.

I used to sneak off and watch Dallas and I remember my dad used to come down the stairs and I used to turn the telly off and sneak back in to my room, pretending I was doing my homework, not watching JR and Sue Ellen. So I suppose that was like my limited form of [rebellion].

Miliband confessed that the Labour Party leadership contest between Ed and his brother David was “bruising” for the family. Asked by Ferrari whether his mum had found it tough, Miliband said she’d probably been through tougher things.

She was in hiding in Poland during the Second World War, she was in a convent, you know, she was just extraordinary. So I think she never says this to me, but my intuition is that she sort of has gone through some tougher things, even tougher things than her two boys standing for leader of the Labour Party.

Miliband told Nick Ferrari what he would have said in a final conversation with his dad, who died when Miliband was 24.

When I was 21 he had this heart bypass operation and he was in intensive care for weeks and it sort of didn’t go well. He was then quite frail.

[I would have said] how much I loved him, what a great dad he’d been, yes and how much I would miss him, you know.

Miliband said he’s grown used to the media’s more personal attacks – with one exception.

I think the alternative is worse, which is not a free press. And I can answer back in the extreme cases – the Daily Mail, saying my dad hated Britain. My Dad loved Britain.

I remember that day actually, it was after the Labour Party Conference and one of the people who works for me rang me up and said, ‘Look I think you should see what the Mail is saying because it’s getting quite a lot of attention’. I was actually with my mum and she thought it was awful, and so far from the truth.

You know, it’s interesting when we used to go on holiday, he much preferred getting home rather than being on holiday. It’s the classic refugee thing I think.

And finally, the Labour leader said he’s happy to be “a square”.

I was pretty sort of square – geeky, verging on the nerdy.… I’ll tell you the white trousers story, it wasn’t so much that I liked to wear white trousers, it’s that I was asked what I wore at the school disco when I was 16 or 17 and I said it was a particularly bad pair of white trousers and purple jumper.

The big lie of economic success may still not save the Tories according to the Guardian’s Seumas Milne, who writes that the coalition’s propaganda “is running up against the reality of falling living standards and insecure low-paid jobs.”

Nick Clegg was asked about laying down red lines in an interview on Sky News just now. “I think given the fragmented nature of politics and uncertain outcome of the election, it’s important people are crystal clear on what they’ll get if they vote for the Liberal Democrats,” he said.

He added that the Tory tax lock was a “bizarre stunt”. “If Cameron trusted the Chancellor why does he need to pass a law? Instead of giving with one hand and then taking with both hands, they should become clear with the public on the level of ideological cuts they want to impose,” he said.

Clegg also said he wouldn’t form a minority coalition with Labour if its existence was based on the say-so of the SNP. “In the same way I wouldn’t put Nigel Farage in charge of the European Union, I wouldn’t put the SNP in charge of the United Kingdom,” he said. “It guarantees instability, populism and factionalism.”

Adam Boulton asked if the Lib Dems would be doing better if Clegg’s wife Miriam was in charge. “The world would be better off if Miriam was in charge,” he said.

Here’s an update on the top Miliband queries on Google today, which are all Russell Brand related:

1. Ed Miliband Russell Brand
2. Ed Miliband Russell Brand interview
3. Ed Miliband Russell Brand YouTube
4. The Trews Ed Miliband
5. Russell Brand Ed Miliband full interview

David Cameron has been condemned by a Christian group for a pledge to end “profoundly wrong” gay cure therapies, Pink News reports. Responding to a question asking if “it’s now time to bring forward legislation to ban reparative therapy for gay people”, the prime Minister told PinkNews:

As you would expect, I strongly disagree with anyone who holds those views. As a Government we’ve made it clear that we believe treating lesbian, gay and bisexual people as having an illness to be ‘cured’ is profoundly wrong. We are creating a country where people can be free to be themselves, and no-one should be pressured into being someone that they’re not.

Through the Department for Health, we secured the signing of a memorandum of understanding earlier this year between NHS England and a range of therapeutic organisations to protect people from the dangers of reparative therapy.

That agreement makes clear such practices are unethical and potentially harmful, and are neither endorsed nor supported. I think that’s a pretty firm approach to stop the use of these practices, but if we need to go further to protect people from harm, we will.

Ukip politician David Coburn has been indefinitely banned from Wikipedia after attempting to alter an article about himself 69 times in six days. Coburn, the Ukip MEP for Scotland, told the Guardian he had directed one of his staff to make the changes in order to clear the page of “garbage” and “nonsense”.

Ed Balls has blasted David Cameron for being “unpatriotic” by fuelling support for the SNP and putting the future of the Union in peril. In a new interview with the Mail, Balls said the Prime Minister should be “ashamed of himself” for seeking to foster division between England and Scotland in an “utterly reprehensible” attempt to stay in power.

The idea that the supposedly unionist party is talking up the nationalist Scots in order to try and set Englishness against Scottishness I think is one of the most reprehensible things I’ve seen in modern British politics.

David Cameron should be ashamed of himself and I do think that people will look back and say this was one of the most unstatesmanlike, unprincipled and unpatriotic things we’ve seen from any political leader in Britain.

He is knowingly putting the Union at risk for short term narrow party political advantage.

The United Kingdom can only be sustained by a sense of mutual commitment to the Union.

If you start trying to divide England and Scotland and go out of your way to demonise the Scots in English eyes simply to try and win a few more short term votes. It is utterly reprehensible.

The great irony is George Osborne and David Cameron are desperate to strengthen the political party that wants to undermine the union.

The fact that they are deciding to put short term political advantage before the good of Britain I think is really shocking.

Gordon Brown fears that the union will be more fragile than ever after this general election campaign, which he believes has become one of “two nationalisms”.

In a public lecture delivered at Glasgow University before a ceremony to confer the former prime minister with an honorary degree, he blamed the SNP for “playing the Scottish card” and the Conservatives for “playing the English card” over the campaign. In doing so, said Brown, “the issue of this election is not just the future of the UK but the very existence of the UK”.

He argued that, in trying to avoid challenges on living standards and the NHS, the Conservatives had unsuccessfully tried to make the election a referendum on Ed Miliband, on Labour’s manifesto and now on a “non-existent imaginary fictitious Labour/SNP pact which can never happen”.

“The whole purpose of this has been to stir up a fear of Scotland,” he said. “We are in danger of having a campaign which ends with Scotland feeling less warm about England and Scotland feeling less warm about England. This is one of the problems that we will have to deal with after the election when the union will be more fragile than ever.”

The Green Party have sent me a statement ahead of Caroline Lucas’ forthcoming interview with Russell Brand. Adam McGibbon, the party’s campaign manager, said:

Russell Brand explained he was filming a Trews with, or about, all the political parties in order to try to engage more people in the general election. We were happy to take part, since we know green policies are very popular with his audience, and it was a key opportunity to make the case that voting matters. Politics needs to be made more accessible - Caroline has always stood up for a political system that isn’t hidden away behind closed doors in Parliament but is part of the communities it’s supposed to serve. It’s right that politicians are scrutinised by the media and if we’re serious about the importance of engaging young people in politics, and encouraging people to use their vote, then it should follow that we engage beyond traditional media and talk to, rather than ignore, those people who are frustrated by Westminster.

Gordon Brown is receiving an honorary degree from Glasgow University now. Our Scotland reporter Libby Brooks is there.

A senior Ukip source has commented on Lord Ashcroft’s poll revealing Farage is on course to lose Thanet South. “The raw data puts us two points up and he’s not named as a candidate. You name the candidate of Nigel or Nick’s national status and that adds five points. I’m quite content that we’re well ahead. But it does show our get-out-the-vote operation has to be slick as hell.”

Rob Ford, the academic who co-authored a book on Ukip called Revolt on the Right, also tweeted that Thanet will likely be decided by get out the vote org.

Labour are unhappy about the audience make up for tomorrow’s leaders’ edition of Question Time, according to the Mirror’s political editor Jason Beattie.

A ComRes/ITV poll of the 50 most marginal Conservative-held seats show Cameron’s party is trailing Labour by three points collectively across the seats.

The study showed Labour currently stand at 40% in these key battleground seats, with the Conservatives on 37%. ComRes suggested that if those results were replicated on election day with a uniformswing across all these constituencies, it would see Labour win 40 of the 50 seats.

Andrew Hawkins, chairman of ComRes, said: “There are crumbs of comfort for both main parties. For the Conservatives there is enough queasiness about Labour doing a deal with the SNP to shift potential votes, and for Labour there is the comfort of overtaking their main rivals across these key marginals.

But Ukip’s presence shows the havoc the party is likely to wreak next week on David Cameron’s chances of remaining in office, and Labour should be asking some serious questions about why they are benefiting so little from the collapse of the Liberal Democrats.”

Fair play to Ed Miliband for trying to convince Russell Brand on the vote, my colleague Marina Hyde writes.

Arguably the boldest move of this preposterously defensive campaign so far – and that tells its own depressing story – the Brand/Miliband encounter is probably as close as we are going to get to what the Americans call an October Surprise. A splashy news event in the final stage of an election campaign deliberately designed to swing it one way. In the US in 1972, Henry Kissinger declared peace was at hand in the Vietnam war. In Britain in 2015, Miliband climbed the stairs to Brand’s flat and explained that, actually, with respect, the creation of the NHS had been quite an important thing. Don’t let anyone tell you it was the politics that got small.

A new ComRes poll of voting intentions in Labour/Conservative marginals puts Labour 3% ahead.

The Guardian’s Anne Perkins was onboard Labour’s pink battle bus when it crashed. She’s just sent me this eyewitness account:

I didn’t think so much of the pink bus when it was launched. I thought it was sadly patronising and cliched to try to attract women’s attention to politics by using the colour pink. Mine was not a unique insight. The result of the derision that accompanied its departure is that it has been an unmitigated success, allowing Labour to take their case to thousands of women and always have something to talk about.

It was an unfortunate coincidence that having finally got a day out on the bus, l was on board at the moment of its first prang in 8,000 miles. I am pleased, if only to protect the unblemished reputation of Sue, the driver, to report IT WAS NOT HER FAULT.

Sue had just executed a flawless manoeuvre in a confined space to allow a car out of its parking space outside Mumsnet Towers in North London. She was reversing - under external guidance (the pink van being light on cameras, screens or even collision avoidance alarms) - back into her parking space at the time of the accident, caused by being a nanosecond late with the brake. She backed into some kind of protuberance, possibly a door handle, that was entirely invisible to her. In my view, that’s the fault of the person doing the guiding, not the driver.

In order to end forever the suggestion that it was anything at all in anyway related to women, driving, spatial awareness or any other hackneyed cliche, I am prepared to reveal that the external navigation advice was coming from a man.

Any joke relating to Sue’s driving and I will name him.

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg chose to criticise the Conservatives rather than Labour for their “po-faced piety” about Miliband’s decision to be interviewed by Brand.

He told reporters: “I’ve actually been interviewed by Russell Brand. I’ve got the T-shirt. Several months ago he interviewed me on drugs reform and it was a colourful, slightly zany, experience and honestly I find this po-faced piety from the Conservatives – I mean it’s a free country – is a insight into quite how mind-numbingly dull the Conservative party campaign has become that they’ve become so critical when anybody choses to do anything a little bit differently.”

Imran Hussain, director of policy at the Child Poverty Action Group, has been in touch regarding Michael Gove’s claims that the Conservatives have been able to save £21bn in the welfare budget while at the same time reducing inequality and child poverty (14:18). Hussain makes the point that Gove can only say this because the published official child poverty stats only go up to 2012-13 and don’t factor in more recent benefit/tax credit cuts - including those the government admits will increase child poverty - nor the introduction of the benefit cap or bedroom tax.

The IFS has published child poverty projections which factor in the coalition’s tax and benefit policies – they say child poverty will have risen by 400,000 by the end of this parliament by 700,000 overall by 2020.

Nick Clegg has responded to Lord Ashcroft’s latest poll showing the Lib Dem leader is set to lose his seat in Sheffield Hallam. Clegg insisted internal polling carried out by the Lib Dems showed he was “firmly ahead” and that Lord Ashcroft’s polls did not identify the candidates by name. “Just call me old-fashioned, but if you are going to try to work out how people are going to vote, ask them the question they are actually going to be asked on polling day,” he told reporters on the Lib Dem campaign bus.

Can the Tory five-year tax lock work? This reality-check blog by my colleague Jamie Grierson answers that question for you.

One of Britain’s leading economists, John Kay, who has run the Institute for Fiscal Studies and been a professor at Oxford University and the London Business School, said he was “not aware of this kind of legislation being introduced before”. But it is possible.

The coalition brought in similar changes to the law with welfare when they introduced a statutory 1% cap on annual increases in benefits.

Whether it is a good idea is a different question. Income tax, VAT and national insurance contributions make up around 60% of all tax revenues.

Here’s a brief analysis by Ashcroft of his new polls. He writes that in Farage’s constituency of Thanet South, the Labour share is receding as the Tories make gains - which points to tactical voting by Labour supporters in order to keep Ukip out. In Sheffield Hallam meanwhile, Nick Clegg can rely on Conservative supporters to vote for him - 31% say they intend to.

In Thanet South I found the Conservatives two points ahead of UKIP, 34 per cent to 32 per cent, despite nearly nine out of ten voters there saying they have had campaign contact from the challengers. In my recent polls in the constituency I have found the Labour share drifting down as the Tory share edges up, suggesting that Labour supporters may be lending their vote to the Conservatives to stop Nigel Farage. However, the lead remains well within the margin of error and the seat could still go either way.

Labour’s lead in Sheffield Hallam is down to a single point, compared to two in March and three in November. While 30 per cent of 2010 Liberal Democrats in the seat say they intend to vote Labour next week, 31 per cent of 2010 Conservatives say they will now vote Lib Dem. Tory voters in the seat were also notably less likely than they are elsewhere to say that they rule out voting for Nick Clegg’s party. Their decisions could have more impact than most in determining the shape of the next government.

Lord Ashcroft has just released constituency polls for Sheffield Hallam, Thanet South and South Swindon.

In Nick Clegg’s constituency of Sheffield Hallam Labour leads by one point, down from a two-point Labour lead in March. In Thanet South, where Ukip leader Nigel Farage is standing, the Tories lead by two points, up from one since last November. And in Tory-held South Swindon, Cameron’s party leads by one point.

All the changes and leads are within the margin of error.

It is worth remembering that Ashcroft doesn’t name candidates in his polls. There are arguments to be made for both approaches, however in a recent Survation poll for South Thanet, which did name the candidates, Farage led by nine points.

Scottish Tories are tanking, Sam Cam is out door-knocking, and Nick Clegg is melting by the Thames: here’s a link to the election photo highlights of the day.

Just in - shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper has revealed that Labour’s pink battle bus has been involved in some sort of accident. Well, I assume it was an accident and not an incident of momentary rage.

David Cameron was on the Jeremy Vine show earlier this afternoon (see 12:29pm). A smart producer remixed this week’s Passion of Cameron “that pumps me up” moment with Ed Miliband’s sassy “hell yeah” retort from earlier in the campaign, which was then played to the Tory leader. Here’s the clip:

Here’s the full exchange:

Jeremy Vine: Maybe that’s gonna be the defining clip if you win! But my goodness you may not win, it’s so tight. You’re enjoying that weren’t you?

David Cameron: These musical mixes of this election … there’s some very interesting videos out there online. Erm look it is close, it’s a very tough fight, it’s a very tight fight out there.

But we’re eight days away till decision time and what I would say to people is when you’ve got that pencil in your hand and you’re in that polling booth ask yourself the question who do I trust with the future of the economy?

If you trust Ed Miliband and all the risks he wants to take, then vote for him. But I would say, we’re on the brink of something special with a really strong economic record and stick with me and stick with the team who helped put it together.

Hello, I’m taking over from Andrew for the rest of the day. I’m on Twitter @nadiakhomami and, as always, I’ll be reading your comments below the line, so don’t be afraid to share your political wisdoms and direct me towards anything you think I’ve missed.

I’ve just seen that the New Statesman has endorsed Labour for the election. It’s hardly surprising from the historically left-of-centre publication, but what’s interesting is that while the magazine encourages its readers to vote for Labour, it does this rather begrudgingly, pointing out that Ed Miliband has failed to broaden his party’s appeal.

We endorsed Ed Miliband in the 2010 leadership contest as the candidate most committed to breaking with New Labour and to effecting far-reaching political and economic reform. Mr Miliband has remained true to this vision while keeping his party unified. He has performed well in the election campaign, growing in confidence as a communicator as his personal ratings have improved. But his five years as opposition leader have revealed severe limitations and strategic weaknesses. He has never succeeded in inspiring the electorate and has struggled to define himself. His narrow rhetorical and ideological focus on political economy has left him unable to reach the aspirational voters required to build a broad electoral coalition

Yet the programme put forward by Labour in this election is still one that is worthy of support.

A Labour source has been in touch to point out that Ed Miliband’s line on the press in his interview with Russell Brand is rather different from that taken by Sajid Javid, the Conservative culture secretary, in an interview with the Daily Mail today.

Asked if the Tories would do any more to implement the Leveson report, Javid said no.

Asked if the Tories would try to force the Press to abide by a Leveson-approved system, Mr Javid said: ‘No, we won’t. But Labour will. It interferes with the freedom of the Press. It goes fundamentally against one of the Leveson principles, which is independent self-regulation. I think we have achieved what we set out to do. Everyone accepted the old system, the Press Complaints Commission, didn’t work. Our job is done as a government. It’s up to the Press.’

Javid also said some of the BBC’s coverage had been biased against the Tories.

My colleague Ben Quinn has been covering the campaign in Clacton today. He has sent me this.

There’s a quieter, perhaps even slightly different, tone to the Ukip campaign which Douglas Carswell is waging to defend the Clacton seat which he held in a by-election just over six months ago following his defection from the Tories.

In the constituency widely regarded as the one which is most likely of all to result in a UKIP victory next week, the former Conservative MP was out this morning delivering leaflets in a traditionally strong Labour area where he seemed at his most passionate and comfortable discussing electoral and local government reform, rather than immigration.

Still revelling in being free from the shackles of the Conservative parliamentary whip system, he insists that Ukip is different from others in that its representatives are freer to speak their minds. That said, it’s hard not to come away with the impression that the intellectual, socially liberal digital enthusiast is sometimes on quite a different page from others at the top of Ukip.

Take the issue of refugees currently attempting to reach Europe across the Mediterranean, on which Nigel Farage provoked controversy last week by saying that Britain should take a number in, but only if they’re Christian.

Carswell, while also insisting on the need to somehow “stop the boats”, says however: “I am uncomfortable about making distinctions between Christian and non Christian because that is what some nasty people in that part of the world want to do and if you make that distinction then maybe you make that narrative more real.

“A sensible country has to be able to say to people who genuinely fear persecution: ‘we will accept you’. There should always be room for genuine asylum, that is in Ukip’s policies and it’s important, but we must not define the world in the way sectarian people would define the world.”

This is what Russell Brand said at the end of the interview.

I think we learnt a lot about Labour, we learnt a lot about Ed Miliband. It’s not a perfect interview but personally I found it a very interesting experience. And i think it says a lot about Ed Miliband that he understands the way the media works now, the way the country feels at the moment … that he was prepared to come and talk to us here at the Trews.

I will post the highlights from the interview shortly.

Michael Gove, the Conservative chief whip and former education secretary, said the claims from Ed Miliband that the Conservatives’ spending plans necessitate a cut in tax credits are based on “a mistake” in their figures and will not happen .

First of all, the figures on which they’re extrapolating this alleged cut don’t take account of the full £30bn of savings we’re going to make, including cracking down on tax evasion and tax avoidance. The second mistake is that it doesn’t take account of the introduction of universal credit overall.

Asked on the World at One to confirm that his party were not planning any cut, Gove replied: “We’re going to freeze them for two years, we are not going to cut them.”

He also argued that the Conservatives’ track record in government showed they were capable of making the £12bn of savings in the welfare budget they have planned during the next parliament.

The past is the best guide to the future. Our track record is the best way in which we can be judge and the fact that we’ve been able to save £21bn in the welfare budget and at the same time reduce inequality and reduce child poverty in this country is an indication of our values and our competence.

Brand is now offering his conclusions. He says it says a lot for Miliband that he was willing to come around and talk to Brand.

He does not quite say “Vote Labour”, but Brand did come reasonably close to an endorsement.

Miliband says he agrees with Brand. He is not offering “giddy euphoria”.

The Tories say this is as good as it gets, he says.

But that is not the case.

Q: At a geopolitical level politicians cannot wield influence.

That is not true, says Miliband.

Q: How do we make Amazon pay more tax?

Miliband says of course there are ways to deal with it. First, you have to work with other countries. And then look at what you can do unilaterally. It will be “hard yards”. But it is not the case that nothing can be done.

Q: No one is proposing an alternative.

There is an alternative, says Miliband.

He believes in practical change.

Look at zero-hour contracts.

All these people are on them, Brand jokes, pointing that his camera crew.

These issues matter to people, says Miliband.

Q: We have lost £840bn to tax evasion since the bank bailout.

Miliband says it was right to bail out the banks. Remember the queues outside banks. It was right to protect people’s savings.

Q: Within this paradigm there is no choice. That is why people like Nigel Farage when he turns up with a pint on his head.

Miliband says he won’t be putting a pint on his head.

Q: How will that happen?

We reform the banks. We need banks, but they have to change.

Q: Could bankers go to prison?

Yes, says Miliband, if they commit fraud.

He wants to change non-dom rules.

There should be one rule for everybody.

Q: We see bankers committing fraud, and no one goes to prison.

Miliband asks Brand if he accepts his fundamental point.

Q: Yes. My mother is only alive because of the NHS. But now people are disillusioned and frustrated. They have made their disillusion clear.

Miliband says there are two issues: does politics make change happen, and what scale of change are we talking about.

You are wrong to say change does not happen, he says.

Q: Will you confront those problems. There is no one in the UK who does not love the NHS.

It is politicians and people who make things change, says Miliband.

He says his central argument is who is the country run for: the elite, or working people.

This is the biggest issue for other countries too, he says.

We need a plan to change the way the country works.

In an interview with the Evening Standard, David Cameron suggested that he could see Boris Johnson as prime minister. Talking about Johnson’s prospects, he said:

I haven’t got a specific job in mind but Boris has got a huge amount of talent and a great track record of running London. I think he can make a contribution at the highest level.

On the Jeremy Vine show David Cameron could not say how much the national debt was. Asked how much higher it is is now than it was in 2010, he replied:

Of course it’s higher. I haven’t got the figure off the top of my head. But every year you borrow more is a year in which you add to the national debt.

Almost 500 voters in Hull have been sent postal ballots missing two candidates, including the Labour incumbent, the Press Association reports.

Karl Turner, running to defend Kingston upon Hull East, said he had been told by the returning officer the issue involved the second tranche of postal ballots sent to 476 voters.

Green candidate Sarah Walpole is also missing from the ballot papers, all of which will be cancelled and reissued to voters in time for polling day.

When William Hague was Conservative leader after 1997, he announced a plan to legislate to cut taxes as a share of national income regardless of the state of the economy. He was forced to drop the idea when Michael Portillo became shadow chancellor.

On the Daily Politics earlier, Hague was asked why the party was now resurrecting a similar idea. He was “ahead of [his] time” in 2000, he replied.

A Labour adviser has sent me a note clarifying some of the figures in Labour’s “Tories’ Secret Plan” document. (See 12.27pm.)

As I reported earlier, Labour is saying the tax credit cuts (£3.8bn) and child benefit cuts (£4.8bn) could be worth a total of £8.6bn.)

But there is also a figure for £5.8bn in the document. This is what the cuts would be worth if the Tories followed the approach they have adopted in this parliament, and taken 32% of the welfare cuts they need to find from tax credits (£3.8bn) and 16% from child benefit (£1.9bn). (I presume a rounding up effect has turned £3.8bn + £1.9bn into £5.8bn.)

The adviser went on:

However, we are saying that it is more likely that they will take more from child benefit this time by rolling it into universal credit – which would save £4.8bn rather than £1.9bn. The Tories have repeatedly refused to rule out doing this in the last few weeks.

Martin McGuinness’s idea for a Northern Ireland only referendum on gay marriage equality is winning some surprising support today. The Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt said that “I can support a referendum in principle.”

Both the SDLP and Alliance have said they would back such a move after Stormont voted narrowly against supporting gay marriage in the region on Monday. But there was a sting in the tail from Nesbitt and the UUP today. He warned that if you start staging referenda in the province there will be pressure from right and left to hold similar plebiscites ranging from subjects like capital punishment to abortion.

And Northern Ireland’s largest gay rights organisation, the Rainbow Project, today said a regional based marriage equality referendum was not the answer.

John O’Doherty, the Rainbow Project’s director pointed out that the Assembly has devolved power to overturn any pro-gay marriage vote.

We must remember that a referendum in the UK has no binding legal effect. Even if the public were to vote in favour of marriage equality, the Assembly would have to pass enabling legislation and as we have seen this week, the Assembly is incapable of making this necessary legal change.

Cue a legal challenge later this year all the way perhaps to the European courts to force the devolved administration to legalise gay marriage.

Cameron says the election is very close.

And that’s it. The Jeremy Vine interview is over.

Cameron says he was always planning to announce new policies during the campaign.

Q: And what about the “pumped up” rhetoric? Were you told to make it look as if you wanted the job?

Cameron says he wants to win more than in 2015.

Q: Why did you say you would only serve one more term?

Cameron says he was asked a straight question, and answered it. When that happens, journalists “set [their] hair on fire”.

Q: You have been making lots of unfunded commitments during the campaign. On inheritance tax, for example.

Cameron says that promise is funded. It would be funded by changes to pension tax relief for the wealthy.

The current threshold for inheritance tax could lead to people who would not describe themselves as rich not being able to pass on their homes to their children.

Q: Where is the money coming from for the NHS?

From our spending plans, says Cameron.

Speaking after he took part in an energetic if uncoordinated exercise dance with pensioners in Yoker, in the Labour-held seat of Glasgow North West, Jim Murphy, the Scottish Labour leader, said:

If this poll is repeated on polling day, David Cameron will be uncorking the champagne because he might cling onto power, not because Scotland went out and voted Tory but because Scotland voted against the Labour party and made sure David Cameron was leader of the largest party.

He added:

We’re behind in the polls, there’s no point in denying that here in Scotland but we’ve got a huge amount of energy, a great amount of determination and look, a week is a long time in politics and we will keep working away.

[The] last thing Scotland needs is for the SNP to win this number of seats and for Scotland to be trapped again in a conversation about a referendum.

While casting himself as the underdog in his own contest to retain East Renfrewshire, since he has held the former Tory seat at every election since taking it off the Tories in 1997, Murphy denied he expected to lose:

I don’t want to disappoint you but that’s not happening. We’re out campaigning every day and I will be campaigning in my seat later today, once I have recovered from the exhaustion of dancing here. We will win our seat here [and] I won’t lose my seat.

Jeremy Vine plays a clip from David Gauke, the Conservative Treasury minister, saying details of the planned £12bn welfare cuts would not be explained before the election.

Cameron says the government has already cut welfare spending by £21bn.

Q: The next bit is harder, isn’t it?

Cameron says he does not want to take money out of working people’s pockets.

Q: What other cuts would you make?

Cameron says he would apply some principles. Welfare should protect the vulnerable, protect pensioners and ensure work pays. But he is planning to freeze some benefits. No other party has proposed that.

Q: Why not take pensioner benefits, like the winter fuel payments, from the wealthy?

Because it would save so little money, Cameron says.

It is worth keeping this universal for the sake of simplicity.

He says young people like to see pensioners treated with dignity.

Cameron says Labour are planning to run a deficit in perpetuity. That is absurd, he says. People running businesses, and families, know that you can run an overdraft for some of the time, but not all of the time.

Q: Ed Balls said this morning they would cut the deficit by 2020.

No, that’s not right, says Cameron. Labour are only talking about the current budget. He says Labour would still run a deficit on capital spending.

The Conservatives’ tax lock law “could cause monumental damage if it has to be defied in the event of a deterioration of the economy”, according to an analyst quoted by Bloomberg Business.

Steve Barrow, head of G-10 strategy at Standard Bank, said in a research note that such a law showed the Conservatives were “the more desperate party” as the general election draws closer.

The story also digs out a 2009 George Osborne quote that was flagged up by Ed Miliband this morning from when the Conservatives were in opposition, mocking the then Labour government’s proposal of a Fiscal Responsibility Act that set targets for deficit reduction.

George Osborne, now chancellor of the exchequer, told Parliament at the time: “No other Chancellor in the long history of the office has felt the need to pass a law in order to convince people that he has the political will to implement his own budget.”

He also pointed out that the law represented “a constitutional first” by imposing no legal sanction if the goals were missed. The Conservatives confirmed Wednesday that their own proposed law would likewise lack any punishment for those breaking it.

The latest STV News poll suggests that the SNP is set to take every one of Scotland’s 59 Westminster seats. Based on the latest Ipsos-Mori findings, which put the SNP at 54%, up two points since January, and Labour down 4 points to 20%, the Electoral Calculus website indicates that Nicola Sturgeon’s party will win every seat, while other calculators give Labour and the Liberal Democrats one seat each.

At a campaign event in Glasgow, Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy told my colleague Severin Carrell that David Cameron would be “uncorking the champagne” if the poll was repeating on 7 May.

Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader, has responded to the latest Scottish poll.

Surgeon’s tweet underlines the danger to the SNP from a poll like this. If voters read a lot of stories about how a huge SNP victory is inevitable next Thursday, they may be less motivated to turn out.

One trend where polls have been consistent for months – across phone polls, internet surveys and constituency polling – is Scotland.

Nicola Sturgeon’s party remains on course to winning nearly all of Scotland’s 59 seats. In fact, if anything, support for the SNP is increasing. The latest Ipsos Mori poll has the party on 54%.

The Guardian’s latest projection has the party on 55 seats.

Q: Was it really necessary to bring in Paul Greengrass, ie Hollywood, to do a Labour party political broadcast?

Miliband says Greengrass is a friend. He has known him for some years. Greengrass offered to help. But Miliband does not think Matt Damon has anything to worry about.

Q: Grant Shapps said you did not mention the deficit in it. That shows you don’t care about it.

That’s nonsense, says Miliband. The broadcast was about showing what motivates him.

Q: Will you be bullied by Nicola Sturgeon if you are prime minister?

There is not going to be a Labour/SNP government, says Miliband.

Q: Why won’t you promise an extra £8bn for the NHS?

Miliband says he will only make promises he can keep.

On ITV’s This Morning Ed Miliband defends his decision to speak to Russell Brand. A lot of politicians do not like moving outside their “comfort zone”. They will only engage with people interested in politics. But he says he thinks it is important to engage with people who are not interested too.

Q: What do you say to people who say Labour governments always leave the country in a mess?

Miliband says that the last government has hit by a global financial crisis.

Q: But the 1964-70 government was hit by a currency crisis. The 1974-79 government was hit by a crisis. The last government was hit by a crisis, and you sold our gold cheap. You guys aren’t any good with money.

Miliband says repeats the point about the last crisis being caused by a global recession. But Labour also invested more in public services.

He says he has apologised for Labour’s failure with bank regulation.

The Liberal Democrats have today set out their plans to extend the free school meals programme - which they introduced in September 2014 to give all four-to-seven-year-olds a free meal at lunch times - to all primary school children, so four-to-11-year-olds. The party says the plans will benefit 1.9m children and save parents around £400 per child per year.

Nick Clegg will be visiting a school in Chippenham with his wife Miriam González Durántez this morning to highlight the policy, which was in the party’s manifesto. He said: “Liberal Democrats want every child to have the best possible start in life. We know that giving children a healthy lunch helps them to concentrate in the afternoon and do better in class.”

The party says the extension of the policy will cost £610m, including the Barnett consequentials, in addition to £100m of one off capital spending for schools to build the necessary kitchen facilities. The policy would be introduced in 2017/18, the date by which the party aims to have cleared the structural deficit.

Nicola Sturgeon has delivered another stirring speech at a women’s business breakfast in Glasgow, urging voters across the country to unite in supporting the SNP in making Scotland’s voice heard in Westminster, and changing the fundamental nature of that parliament itself.

Saying that she was sending a message to those who voted no as well as yes in the referendum, and those who had never voted for the SNP previously as well as long-time supporters, Sturgeon said:

On May 7th we can seize this historic moment to shift the balance of power from the corridors of Westminster to the streets of Scotland. By voting SNP, we can make our nation’s voice heard like never before. Together we can unite to make Scotland better.

She also repeated her belief that Ed Miliband basically doesn’t mean what he says about not cooperating with the SNP post-election: “Whatever Labour says now about not working with others, the fact is they will have to change their tune if the voters - as all the polls suggest they will - deliver a parliament of minorities, with no one party having an overall majority.”

The Cameron speech and Q&A is now over.

I will post a summary of the key points from the Labour and Tory events soon.

Damian McBride, Gordon Brown’s former spin doctor and a former Treasury official, has written a blog saying it is wrong for the Tories to say there would be no tax rises under them in the next parliament. A range of tax increases, on things like fuel and tobacco, are already planned, he writes.

He also says the Tory plan, announced today, not to extend the scope of VAT is a mistake.

If you want a good indicator of the fact that this ‘announcement’ has been cobbled together at the last minute by a Tory leadership in the grip of a giant wobble, look no further than the throwaway promise that there will be ‘no extension in the scope of VAT’. That’s been thrown in to avoid accusations that they’re planning a raid on the VAT zero rates having forgotten to pledge their protection in the Tory manifesto. But it’s clearly been written by someone who knows nothing about VAT. The scope of VAT is constantly changing as new products and services come onto the market and a decision needs to be taken on their VAT treatment or as unscrupulous tax accountants come up with ingenious ways to avoid the tax and legislation is required to counteract them. Saying there will be ‘no extension’ in the scope of VAT is both financially illiterate and fiscally irresponsible, but I guess on that charge, the Tories currently think: in for a penny ….

Cameron is now taking questions from audience members, not journalists. The first isn’t really a question, but a rant about Mike O’Brien, the Labour candidate for North Warwickshire and Bedworth.

Q: Five years ago you promised not to put up VAT. But you did. Is this pledge designed to ensure you don’t break your promise again?

Cameron says he can make this pledge because he has seen the books. He has been prime minister for five years.

Under a Labour/SNP government, take-home pay would go down, he says.

Cameron is now taking questions.

Q: Why should people trust you on tax, if you say you need to pass a law on this?

Cameron says people should trust him because he has seen “the books” and he know that he can clear the deficit without having to put up taxes.

He has a balanced plan, that also includes investing in the NHS.

Back in Birmingham, Cameron is in full pumped up mode. There is one thing he want to “get of [his] chest”, he says. It is the fact that while he has been clearing up the economic mess left by Labour, they have been on the sidelines criticising. It is like trying to put out a fire and having the arsonist who started it next to you criticising you.

Michael Crick from Channel 4 News posted this on Twitter after the Labour press conference.

The Tories have already sent me a press line about this. “On the day we’re announcing plans to keep tax low for millions of ordinary families – Ed Balls defends tax avoidance by a millionaire heiress,” a source said.

They haven’t sent me a line, though, answering the key question asked at the press conference. See 9.27am.

BBC News and Sky have given up their coverage of the Cameron speech, but there is a live feed on the BBC website. I will be monitoring it, and posting the highlights.

Cameron says he is today in a position to promise that the Tories would legislate to block increases in income tax, national insurance and VAT.

He can say this because he has seen the books, he says.

Q: What did you learn from meeting Russell Brand?

Miliband says 7m people are not registered to vote. That is shocking. And there are more people who will not vote.

I will do anything and engage with anyone to persuade people to vote.

Russell Brand thinks voting does not change anything. But Milband says voting does change thing. Look at changes that have happened in this country, like the right to vote, workers’ rights, the minimum wage and gay rights. Those changes happened because people voted.

Q: Will the mansion tax threshold go up with house-price inflation?

Yes, says Miliband.

Balls says the Labour mansion tax plan will come in at a level above £2m. That is because it will apply to homes worth £2m last autumn. And the level will continue to rise in line with London house-price inflation, he says.

And that’s it. The press conference is over. David Cameron is speaking now in Birmingham. I will switch over to that in a moment.

Q: Does your promise not to raise national insurance include a promise not to raise the ceiling?

Yes, says Balls. He says Labour is not going to change national insurance. All its plans are paid for.

Q: Can you guarantee to approving the maingate decision on Trident early in 2016, which would be before the Holyrood election?

Miliband says Labour will do whatever it takes to keep Britain safe. The warning from former defence chiefs today needs to be taken seriously.

The fact that Michael Fallon, the Conservative defence secretary, could not say yesterday that the Tories would vote for Trident says a lot about how desperate the Tories are.

Q: Why should people trust you when you won’t say what taxes you would raise?

Milband says Labour has said what taxes it would raise.

He says Labour can give assurances about raising tax credits at least in line with inflation because it has said how it would pay for its plans.

Q: Don’t the Tory plans today for a tax lock blow a hole in your analysis?

No, says Balls. People will not believe the Tories.

He says he does not think people will believe the Tories’ claim not to be planning to raise VAT.

And the Tories have not promised that they won’t cut tax credits or child benefit.

And the tax lock law would also make it impossible to raise the top rate of tax back to 50p. It would “entrench unfairness”, he says.

Cameron’s promises on VAT are not worth the paper they are written on.

Miliband reads out the quote from Osborne I flagged up earlier. See 8.08am.

Miliband is now taking questions from journalists.

Q: If you are criticising the Tories for not saying where they will cut, shouldn’t you say more about the cuts you would make?

Miliband says the Institute for Fiscal Studies said Labour had given more details than other parties about its plans. And it is a balanced plan, combining cuts and tax increases.

Balls says Labour wanted the Office for Budget Responsibility to be allowed to audit its plans, but the government blocked this.

He says he disputes IFS claims that some of the proposed Labour tax rises, like increasing the 50p rate, would only raise a trivial amount of money.

The Labour document also claims that the Tories have made unfunded spending commitments worth almost £7bn during the election campaign. Here is the key passage.

Q: Will Labour stop free schools that are being planned?

Miliband says Labour will not close existing free schools.

There is a crisis in school capacity, he says. So that is why Labour is opposed to building new free schools in places where there are already school places.

Miliband says the bedroom tax is “a horrendous policy that does not even work”.

Q: Do you support the right to buy?

Miliband says he supports the principle of right to buy because he thinks home ownership is a good thing.

But it has to be done in the right way. That means ensuring that you don’t denude the housing stock. The Tories have proposed a plan that would cost more than £4bn, without saying how that would be funded.

Q: How will the mansion tax work? Will basic rate tax payers have to pay?

Ed Balls says basic rate taxpayers will be able to defer paying the mansion tax until their home is sold. They will not have to move out.

Q: Should Margaret Hodge have shares in a tax haven?

Balls says these were shares transferred by Margaret Hodge’s family from Germany before the war. Margaret has bought those shares onshore, and pays tax on them, he says.

The Labour document is presented as a spoof internal Tory memo.

Here is an extract.

Our public position is that we are planning a consolidation of £30 billion in the next Parliament, with £13 billion from departmental savings.

As you know, this was never the complete picture. After coming under pressure and rushing out our unfunded commitments in the campaign, the state of play is now even more difficult.

Our plans mean the figure for overall required savings is £58 billion, with £46 billion coming from departmental savings.

If we keep to our promise to not raise taxes, this will mean we are cutting faster than any of the other political parties’ plans, with bigger cuts than any other advanced economy in the next three years.

The panel are now taking questions.

Ed Miliband says they will start with questions from the invited audience, before taking questions from journalists.

At the Labour press conference Rachel Reeves, the shadow work and pensions secretary, is speaking now.

She says the Tories cut child benefit and tax credits after the 2010 election.

She says, if the Tories will not accept that Labour’s analysis of what they will do is correct, they must say what their plans for welfare actually are.

Back to the Labour press conference, where Ball is saying that £5.8bn would be cut from tax credits under the Tory plans.

Jim Murphy, the Scottish Labour leader, has insisted he plans to remain Labour MP for East Renfrewshire for a full five years if he defies the polls and holds his seat next week. A Lord Ashcroft poll suggested last week that the SNP had taken a 9 point lead over Murphy, on a 26.5% swing, in a seat where previously the Tories were his fiercest competitors.

Murphy told BBC Radio Scotland he had told his constituents he would not step down early to take up a Holyrood seat to focus solely on the Scottish parliament – a prospect he himself floated after taking over as Scottish leader last year. That suggests he remains nervous about his chances of holding the seat.

“I told my constituents that I will stay on for a full five years. I’ve been very clear about that. I’m committed to being the candidate,” he told Good Morning Scotland.

It’s worth noting that Murphy is the only Scottish party leader fighting for reelection on 7 May, which doubles the pressure on him.

But his assertion flags up real questions over whether he could stand for Holyrood next year and simultaneously be MP and MSP. He would have to rely on the precedent set by former SNP leader and first minister Alex Salmond from 2007 to 2010.

Balls says David Cameron said before the 2010 that it was “a lie” to say that the Tories would cut tax credits.

But they did, he says.

And here is the Labour poster about the plans.

Here is the Labour briefing on what Labour is calling “the Tories’ secret plan” (pdf).

Balls says the IFS said recently the Tories were at risk of giving a misleading impression of what the cuts would look like. They were right.

Balls is quoting Robert Chote, head of the Office for Budget Responsibility, and Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, about the Tories plannning remarkably deep cuts.

And he repeats the line he used in his Today interview. People understand the phrase “once bitten, twice shy”, he says.

The Tories would cut unprotected budgets by 21% a year.

The reality of those cuts is devastating.

The number of elderly people receiving care would be cut. Some 10,000 police officers would go. And the armed forces would be cut to their smallest size since Cromwell.

Miliband says he has a “tough but balanced” plan to cut the deficit every years.

But he will protect family budgets too, he says.

Miliband is now on the Tory threat to family finances.

He says Labour is releasing figures showing that 7.5m families would lose out under planned Tory cuts. They would lose £760 each on average.

And today the Tories have produced a tax gimmick, he says. He says people will not believe them.

Before the last election, the Tories said that they would not cut tax credits affecting people earning less than £50,000 and that they would not cut child benefit. But they did both.

Miliband says he is giving an assurance that Labour will protect tax credits.

It is 20 years to the day since Tony Blair won the vote on changing Clause 4 of Labour’s constitution. My colleague Jason Rodrigues has written about it on our archive blog.

Our focus group’s thoughts on the campaign

What do the real voters think? We have 60 in five key seats giving their view throughout the campaign as part of our polling project with BritainThinks. They each have an app and are telling us what they think of stories and key issues as they crop up.

Comments over the last few days have reflected the fragmented state of the campaigns, with our voters remaining largely cynical about the parties’ various promises over the economy. It will be interesting to see how our voters respond in the coming days to coverage of the Tories’ promised “tax lock”, given the prevailing mood.

What’s the explanation for why the issues aren’t cutting through? Andrew Cooper’s great analysis of the “silent campaign” says the rhetoric is all prose and no poetry – “there is no drama, electricity or rhythm”.

Q: Isn’t it a bit demeaning for Ed Miliband to be interviewed by “that great political philosopher” Russell Brand?

Balls says politicians should give interviews to may people.

Q: He called you - I can’t read it out in full. And you called him a “Pound Shop Ben Elton”.

That’s what young people call banter, says Balls.

He says Brand has 1m YouTube viewers. Miliband challenged Brand’s views.

Q: Did Miliband persuade Brand?

Balls says he has not seen the full interview.

But politicians sometimes have to get out of their comfort zone, he says.

Miliband challenged Brand. It’s all good stuff, he says.

And that’s it. I’ll post a summary soon.

Balls says the recovery is not working for ordinary people. There are 1.8m zero hours contracts.

Q: And 60% of people want to be one one.

Balls says when David Cameron says that is fine, people know he is out of touch. He says Humphrys has never been accused of being out of touch.

Balls says he wants to get a surplus by 2019-20.

Q: Where will the money come from?

It won’t just come from spending cuts.

Balls says some on the left, like the Greens, say no spending cuts. Others on the right, like George Osborne, say the deficit should be reduced entirely by spending cuts. Labour has a sensible, moderate approach.

Q: When will you get rid of the deficit?

Balls says he will get rid of the current deficit by 2019-20. But he would like to do that earlier.

That will depend on stimulating the economy. We need to raise exports, he says, and improve productivity.

Q: But you cannot say how much you will be borrowing?

Balls says the first line of Labour’s first budget will contain a pledge to cut the deficit every year.

Balls says the Tories will cut welfare by £12bn.

Labour will increase tax credits, at least in line with inflation. The Tories will cut them, affecting 4.5m people.

Q: Will you freeze tax threshold?

No, says Balls. He says Labour will increase tax thresholds in line with inflation.

The Tories will raise VAT to make their sums add up.

I won’t, because my sums add up already.

Q: Are you happy an extra 1.6m people will be dragged into the higher rate of tax. He is quoting the IFS from yesterday.

Balls says he wants to stop more people being dragged into the higher rate of tax. But he cannot make promises without knowing the money is available.

Q: So you will definitely raise the threshold in line with inflation.

Yes, says Balls.

Good morning. I’m taking over from Claire.

Ed Balls will be on the Today programme shortly.

On the subject of the Conservatives proposed “tax lock”, he may mention this quote - from George Osborne, in 2009 - that Labour has flagged up in a press release.

No other chancellor in the long history of the office has felt the need to pass a law in order to convince people that he has the political will to implement his own Budget. As one commentator observed this week, there are only two conclusions. Either the chancellor has lost confidence in himself to stick to his resolution, and is, so to speak, asking the police to help him, or he fears that everyone else has lost confidence in his ability to keep his word, but hopes that they might believe in the statute book if not in him. Neither is much of a recommendation for the chancellor of the day.

I’m just about to hand over to Andrew Sparrow but can’t resist sharing this gleeful moment for the Guardian’s Scotland reporter Libby Brooks on Twitter yesterday:

My colleague Amelia Gentleman has written an excellent piece on the immigration debate and the election campaign in Wolverhampton.

In the former seat of Enoch Powell, she finds, immigration is not the issue on most voters’ minds:

Even in the local Ukip campaign headquarters, the single pledge framed and hung on the wall is not about immigration. Instead it promises: “We will work to provide more free parking for the high street.”

You can read the article in full here.

The Mirror reports this morning that work and pensions secretary – and tub-thumper for the £12bn welfare cuts – Iain Duncan Smith failed to turn up to his own constituency hustings. It reports:

Voters from Iain Duncan Smith’s constituency last night called for him to be sanctioned – with his MP’s salary suspended – for failing to show up at his local hustings.

Candidates from six other parties – Labour, Green, Lib Dem, Class War, TUSC and Ukip – managed to make the event at Woodford Memorial Hall. But the sitting MP failed to show up in his constituency of Chingford and Woodford Green in north London.

Organisers said he had been “called away to the north-west of the country” after a “late change to his schedule”.

Duncan Smith – who doesn’t live in the constituency – was quoted as saying “these things often happen”. He had given some answers to prearranged questions via Facebook.

My colleague Larry Elliott has this story on Paul Krugman, a Nobel prize-winning US economist, who has attacked Conservative austerity measures – and Labour’s limp response. Krugman says:

Cameron is campaigning largely on a spurious claim to have ‘rescued’ the British economy – and promising, if he stays in power, to continue making substantial cuts in the years ahead.

Labour, sad to say, are echoing that position. So both major parties are in effect promising a new round of austerity that might well hold back a recovery that has, so far, come nowhere near to making up the ground lost during the recession and the initial phase of austerity.”

You can read the full article here. And Krugman’s long read for the Guardian – The austerity delusion – is here.

William Hague has been on the Today programme. He’s not standing in this election, of course, but is nonetheless very pleased about Cameron’s proposed tax lock, he tells Radio 4’s Justin Webb.

And a lock is a world away from a pledge, it turns out. It is “categoric legislation … a clear guarantee”:

The difference is to put it into the law of the land … [It] not only underlines the commitment but makes it more difficult to change that commitment.

This [tax] is at the heart of what parliamentary votes take place about.

Asked why the Tories said in the 2010 election campaign that they would not raise VAT, only to do precisely that almost as soon as they took office, Hague said:

The difference now, of course, is that five years ago we were dealing with a huge deficit – almost Greek – which has now been halved.

Webb wants to know what the tax lock would mean should the goverment be “thrown off course” by war or a financial crisis. Is it not “actually rather irresponsible to close off one area of governement action”, he asks.

Hague: One or the reasons we’ve been bringing down the deficit … is to make the British economy more resilient in the event of unexpected crises.

That resilience means that if there are further unforeseen crises … the economy is in a far stronger position.

But, Webb asks, why no similar guarantees on other pledges? Why not guarantee to preserve child benefit, for example?

Hague: We have aid a great deal about what we will do on benefits [he mentions the two-year freeze on working-age benefits].

What we’ve set out is more detail than any other party and we’ve got the track record to go with it.

That will not be true under an Ed Miliband SNP majority in parliament.

Finally, Hague is asked about Trident and the hint from defence secretary Michael Fallon that Conservative MPs might not support a Labour government on this issue. That’s not what he meant, Hague seems to be saying:

Conservative MPs would always vote to secure the national interest.

We don’t know what a Labour government would put to the Commons.

We are in favour of a full replacement of Trident. We will always be consistent with our policy … The doubt is that Labour would put that to the Commons.