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Were Sir Alex Ferguson ever to swap Old Trafford for the Welsh assembly campaign trail he would doubtless describe this period as "squeaky bum time".

It is that time of the campaign when the big issues are decided, when one slip from a candidate or party can jeopardise years of hard work.

It is also a time when rivals tend to get rather tetchy, when parties play their "taking legal advice" card: when even the police are called in.

In Caerphilly, the cops have been kept rather busy this week by a row over the strange disappearance of party placards. Political parties tend to view their placards as if they were rare Picassos, to be viewed but not touched by their opponents.

So Plaid Cymru have complained to the police after the local Labour MP admitted taking down some Plaid placards from front gardens in the constituency.

Plaid say Wayne David told one of their supporters her placard was illegal and offensive and intimidated her into allowing him to take it away. (His constituent didn't recognise him but an identification process involving his black Audi and an encounter with a former TV executive on the Plaid campaign put a name to the face).

Plaid councillor Anne Collins told me: "He did have her permission but it was a funny way to go about it. This behaviour is beyond belief".

Mr David, accused of theft by Plaid, and of an unusual approach to his constituency duties by other candidates, accused Plaid of trespass in posting their placards in gardens of Labour supporters and says he too has complained to the police.

The Plaid candidate in Caerphilly is Mr David's predecessor as the Labour MP, Ron Davies, the former Secretary of State for Wales. The two are not friends.

Mr Davies, who believes Mr David may have breached the Representation of the People Act, invited us to film him in a street with an impressive (untouched) array of Plaid Cymru placards in the front gardens.

Unfortunately for him, the first door we knocked on belonged to a Terry Fullick, who had been a bit annoyed to return from holiday to discover a Plaid placard in his garden.

Mr Fullick has always been a Plaid Cymru supporter but, to put it mildly, isn't a fan of their candidate. "I was away on holidays, I came back, I've seen that and I thought "no"."

The police say they're looking into reports of electoral irregularities in the Caerphilly area.

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