91Èȱ¬

Today Labour is launching its sports manifesto. Yes, a sports manifesto.

This must be the most manifesto-ed election in world history. As well as each party's main manifesto, we have manifestos for Scotland, Wales and London.

We have them on health, on business, and on schools, manifestos for pensioners, for children, and on and on.

If I looked I'd probably find manifestos on kangaroos and speed bumps, for circus clowns and acupuncturists.

And they're all competing to become the least read documents in history.

Great agonies at The Guardian newspaper, I understand, where they still have not announced which party they are urging readers to support.

Their verdict may well appear in the paper tonight, Guardian sources have told me over the last few days, probably for the Liberal Democrats.

The Guardian traditionally holds a big meeting of its editorial staff to debate its choice before every election. That took place a week ago, on Friday 23 April. The feeling there was that the paper should still support Labour, with the arguments for Labour very led much by Polly Toynbee and Jackie Ashley.

But the editor Alan Rusbridger is thought to favour the Liberal Democrats. And the trouble with the paper supporting Labour is that such a position looks ridiculous when not long ago the Guardian - and Toynbee in particular - were urging Gordon Brown to quit, or Labour MPs to depose him.

On a historical note, people may think of the Guardian as a left-wing paper, and in recent years it has almost always backed Labour. But its long-term record is more complicated.

In two elections, most recently in 1955, the paper actually urged readers to vote Conservatiive.

And in 1983 The Guardian went for the Liberal-SDP Alliance.

Even if we do get The Guardian's verdict tonight, it is all a bit late. Around 10% of voters must have cast their votes by post by now.

Many more will have made up their minds already. I'm not sure an endorsement from the paper, for either Clegg or Labour (or a fudge of the two) will now make much difference.

Taking of Charlie Whelan, he tells me that Jeremy Paxman owes him a favour.

He claims to have done a deal with Paxo that if Gordon Brown agreed to do an interview with him during the election, then Jeremy would appear as a guest on the radio programme which Whelan presents for 91Èȱ¬ Radio Scotland called Fly-Fishing with Charlie.

Gordon Brown is due to do his interview with Jeremy tomorrow, so Charlie now expects JP to go north to fulfill his side of the deal.

The government's twitter tsar, Kerry McCarthy, the sitting Labour MP for Bristol East, is being investigated by the police after tweeting voting figures from a check on postal votes in her seat.

This is apparently an offence under election law.

The trouble is that several people re-tweeted her figures, so if an offence was committed they may have committed it too.

These include the Unite official, and key ally of Gordon Brown, our old friend Charlie Whelan.

What is it about Rochdale women? Gordon Brown is not the first senior politician to get into huge trouble by upsetting a woman from the Lancashire mill town.

Twenty-four years ago the Conservative deputy chairman Jeffrey Archer lost his job when the News of the World caught him paying several thousand pounds to the prostitute Monica Coghlan, who came from Rochdale.

The scandal led to Archer winning a libel case in 1987, but in 2001 he was jailed for perjury over the case.

Ladbrokes are now offering odds of 3-1 on somebody saying the words "bigoted woman" in tomorrow night's TV debate. Earlier today their odds were 16-1.

I can't imagine Gordon Brown will want to use the phrase again, but surely there's an ideal chance here for the Lib Dems to replenish their election coffers.

The party should put as much money as they can on a Ladbrokes bet, and then get Nick Clegg to say to the first female questioner tomorrow: "I'm sure you're not a bigoted woman."

Or perhaps they've already placed such a bet. Which may explain why the odds have dropped so much.

I've been warning a lot over the past few days that the two, big parties had better get a move on if they're going to reverse the Lib Dem surge. People started voting by postal ballot last Saturday. And the total who've done so may well have hit the million mark by now.

On reflection, after today's events Labour may be glad many people have already voted!

No doubt Mrs Duffy will emerge from her home in a few minutes time and tell us that she's still not voting Labour.

"And what's more," she'll say, "the postal ballot on my mantelpiece has just disappeared."

Just joking Gordon.

Gillian Duffy's postal ballot paper may become one of the great political souvenirs of all time. Something to rival Neville Chamberlain's air ticket to Munich and back.

Mrs Duffy had already cast her vote for Labour, but not posted it. The ballot form remains sitting on her mantelpiece, and she now claims she won't post it at all.

I hope that if indeed she doesn't vote, she doesn't throw the form away. It will be much sought after polling day and could fetch a good sum on ebay.

Gordon Brown's unguarded comments about Gillian Duffy in Rochdale may well go down as the moment when Labour was condemned to Opposition. Labour could now be heading for for third place, and its worst defeat since 1918.

Mr Brown's comments are dreadful on several levels.

First, of course, they will anger the many millions of voters, many of them Labour, who are also worried about immigration. Many of these people are not racists. They suggest that the PM doesn't understand their concerns, let alone share them.

Second, they reveal the darker side of Gordon Brown, and confirm what many of his critics have long said. He doesn't like criticism, and tried to avoid it. He expects his staff to keep critics well away from him. Tony Blair, in contrast, often went out of his way to confront critics - the so-called masochism strategy.

Third, they show that Labour's claims since the weekend that Mr Brown was now meeting "real people" are pretty bogus. It's clear from his comments, and criticism of his long-standing aide Sue Nye, that Mr Brown still expected to be presented on the campaign only with loyal Labour voters. We now know the party was hoodwinking us.

I don't recall a previous general election when candidates have been suspended by the main parties during the course of the campaign. Yesterday we had Labour's man in South East Cambridgeshire, .

Now today comes news that the Conservatives have

Both suspensions are pretty academic. It's too late for the parties to pick replacement candidates. Nominations for the election closed last week, and both men will appear officially as their parties' respective candidates, since voting papers will already have been printed and gone out to postal voters.

So what are loyal Labour voters in South East Cambridgeshire, and loyal Conservative voters in Ayrshire North and Arran, now supposed to do instead. Abstain? Vote for another party?

Both are unsatisfactory options, especially when each party's total national vote in this election may be an important consideration in the aftermath.

In the event of a hung parliament, we will no doubt hear a lot from certain parties to the effect that their national vote gives them extra authority.

It's good to see that big speeches haven't died out in election campaigns, though they may no longer always take place at big evening rallies in town halls around the country.

And it was interesting that David Cameron took time this morning to expound on his Big Society theme.

I've expressed scepticism recently about whether this slogan works, and also about whether, given his centralising track record as a party leader, Cameron will really deliver "power to the people".

I've only read , but Cameron does give a serious, important explanation of the philosophy behind his politics, and I felt it was more coherent and persuasive than his party conference speech on the same theme last year.

It was remarkably free of political jibes about his opponents, and interesting in that the two figures he cited are not usually considered to be great heroes of the right - the former Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone, and Barack Obama.

Whether it will make much difference in how people vote, I doubt. But that's not always the point of big election speeches.

I was told by one of Tony Blair's former advisers the other day that Blair used to put an extraordinary amount of effort into his set-piece speeches during campaigns.

Part of the purpose, I imagine, is for the leader himself and his party colleagues to gather their thoughts amid the tiring hurly-burly of an election campaign. And also to act as a philosophical route map if one does achieve power.

The Financial Times reporter at this morning's Labour press conference asked Ed Balls what he thought of the Conservatives now targeting his seat of Morley and Outwood and pursuing a decapitation strategy.

The FT's man was obviously too polite to call it was everyone else is calling it - a castration strategy.

A Newsnight colleague got his postal ballot this morning. So some people will have begun voting today, two days ahead of the official start of postal voting.

say their internet poll on the debate last night was conducted between 9.27pm and 9.31pm.

This may explain why Yougov gave David Cameron a better rating than the other post-debate polls did last night. For Nick Clegg ended the debate with a very powerful closing speech, probably the best of the evening.

According to the 91Èȱ¬ video system Clegg didn't start speaking until 9:29:18 and finished at 9:30:47‬‪.

So many of those polled by Yougov last night must have voted without seeing his final speech.

The TV audience number crunchers have been using their abacuses, quill pens and tablets of stone all night, and finally come up with viewing figures for the channels which showed the debate last night.

But they say will have to wait til lunch time to add them up.

But I will give you the answer now - 4,073,000 - less than half of the audience for the first debate, on ITV last week.

Guido Fawkes has been exploring the role of Lord (Chris) Rennard in the Lib Dem campaign. , despite the fact that he resigned last year as chief executive.

And this morning .

And yet Lib Dem press officer Phil Reilly emphatically told Guido that Rennard had no role in the campaign.

Why this apprent Lib Dem cover up? And why are the party so sensitive anyway?

It may be the circumstances of Rennard's departure.

Officially he left his job as party chief executive for health reasons; unofficially for other reasons, such as his House of Lords allowance claims.

But did Rennard resign or was he fired by the party? I was told by a very senior Liberal Democrat last summer that Rennard was, in fact, "sacked".

Subsequently I did a campaign interview with Nick Clegg during the Norwich North by-election. Four times I put questions to Clegg - on camera - in which I said I understood that Rennard had been "sacked".

In none of his four answers did Nick Clegg ever try to deny my assertion that Rennard was fired.

Clegg could have said to me: "No Michael, we didn't fire Chris, he resigned."

But very noticeably, he didn't.

So perhaps the Liberal Democrats could clear things up for us. Is Rennard working for them now in any capacity? And did he resign as chief executive or was he sacked?

And if he was sacked, why?

Oh boy, how about this folks? Sky and the 91Èȱ¬ are at odds over what to call the TV debate tomorrow night.

You'll recall a few weeks ago how I revealed that the TV negotiators dreamt up the ruse of calling them Prime Ministerial debates, rather than leaders' debates, as a clever way of resolving what to do about the SNP and Plaid Cymru leaders, Alex Salmond and Ieuan Wyn Jones.

After all, they aren't trying to be PM, the broadcasters said.

Gotcha.

The SNP and Plaid were understandably furious with this brilliant stitch-up.

ITV rather fudged the issue last week by calling it "The Election Debate", but Sky have now bust things wide open. The needlework's coming badly unstitched.

Sky are calling their programme tomorrow night "The Leaders' Debate".

The 91Èȱ¬, reliable as ever, are determined to stick to the original agreement, and we will call it a "Prime Ministerial Debate" in our coverage.

However, in the on-screen captions the 91Èȱ¬ will be using for its TV coverage, the Corporation has had to succumb to Sky's programme title "The Leaders' Debate".

The Conservatives and Labour need to start reversing the Lib Dem surge within the next few days, and ideally (for them) by the end of the weekend.

We keep thinking that polling day is still 15 days away. But for millions of voters the polls open this coming Monday when people who have applied for postal votes should receive their ballot papers.

In 2005, 15 per cent of all votes cast were by post. The rules are a bit tighter this time, but some analysts think the postal vote in 2010 could be as high as one in five voters.

Past experience shows that most postal voters tend to cast their ballots within only a day or two of receiving them.

That means that by the time of the third TV debate on Thursday 29 April - hosted by the 91Èȱ¬ - around ten per cent of all votes in the 2010 election could already have been cast - maybe more.

So tomorrow's debate is hugely important to the Conservatives and Labour. Otherwise the Lib Dem surge may start taking effect on how people vote - from Monday.

I observed in Luton South nearly two weeks ago how little candidates there were making of the expenses issue, even though the retiring MP Margaret Moran was disgraced over her expense claims.

And it seems to be the same picture where I have been this afternoon, in East Lothian, where the Labour MP Ann Moffat was sacked recently by the local Labour Party, partly over her high expense claims. Certainly neither the Lib Dems in East Lothian, nor the Conservatives, are making much of the issue on their leaflets.

As for the SNP, I can't say. We haven't managed to meet their candidate yet, or any of his campaign team.

Candidates say they don't need to stress the expenses issue in seats like this because voters are familiar with the situation locally. I am sceptical about this.

I think the omission may reflect an unwritten understanding amongst the political class to play the issue down, and a feeling perhaps that it only increases public disillusionment and disgust with politicians of all parties.

Nominations for election candidates close today, and it looks like the final tally of retirements will be 148 (if former Labour MPs Bob Wareing and Frank Cook confirm they are not standing as independents).

That's made up of 99 Labour MPs, 35 Conservative, 7 Lib Dems, and 7 others. In my opinion the figure should be a round 150 since the DUP MP Iris Robinson stepped down early, and the North West Leicestershire Labour MP David Taylor died during the Christmas holiday, without either of them being replaced in a by-election.

What's especially remarkable is that not a single MP has announced their retirement since the Labour MP for Nottingham East John Heppell did so on 26 March, almost a month ago. Normally there are several retirements announced after the election is called. This year the parties seem to have flushed out their many retiring members relatively early.

So there is no spare seat for the Downing Street aide Jonathan Ashworth, or for the defence minister and Tory defector Quentin Davies, or for several other ministerial adviser types who have also been on the prowl.

Are the Liberal Democrats capable of taking proper advantage of their sudden surge in the polls?

Not if my trip to Bournemouth West today is anything to go by.

Statistically it's number 25 on the Lib Dem target list, and should be an even juicier prospect given that the retiring MP Sir John Butterfill was disgraced in the recent Channel 4 lobbying expose.

Yet the Lib Dems seem to be campaigning as if the seat is sewn up - for the Tories.

The only Lib Dem posters I saw all day were at the agent's house, and at the house which serves as the campaign HQ (which was deserted apart from the owner of the house and her family). And even those posters didn't have the candidate's name.

The Lib Dem agent admitted to me that he couldn't afford to spend up to the full expense limit on his campaign - roughly £9,000. They have been given no extra resources by the Lib Dem high command. Neither Nick Clegg nor Vince Cable has visited the seat recently.

And the agent admitted to me that Bournemouth activists have been urged instead to help Annette Brooke, who is defending the neighbouring seat of Mid Dorset and North Poole.

There was no sense in Bournemouth that the Lib Dem campaign should step up a gear after last Thursday's debate. This is bizarre. On all the polls since Thursday it's a seat the Lib Dems could or should win.

Unless Annette Brooke has been a hopeless MP, and I have no reason to think she has, the Lib Dems should turn the party supertanker round quickly. Her campaign should be switching people, effort and money to Bournemouth West straight away, not the other way round.

My experience in Bournemouth West shows just how short of resources the Lib Dems have been, and until now, short of ambition too.

They have been aiming for far too a narrow range of seats to exploit this surge properly. And many of those are constituencies belonging to sitting MPs, not places where they can make big advances.

Reports reach me of another dramatic spotting of that rare species that was thought, until recently, to be utterly extinct in this country - the Labour constituency leaflet with a picture of Gordon Brown.

The latest sighting - yet to be confirmed - of this much sought-after specimen - comes from Bournemouth in Dorset, on the southern coast of England.

Newsnight has direct evidence from two eye-witnesses. The Labour candidate for Bournemouth West, Sharon Carr-Brown - no relation - has just told me she chose not to use a picture of herself taken with Brown. The picture wasn't good enough, she says - of her, not Brown that is (yeah, yeah).

However Mrs Carr-Brown and her agent have both told Newsnight the Labour candidate next door in Bournemouth East has used a picture of Brown.

So, along with Daniel Zeichner in Cambridge, that makes two recent sightings of an extraordinarily rare leaflet-type which political anoraks (well just me, actually) are calling the "lesser spotted Brown".

And the Brown picture is on the prime minister's own constituency leaflets, of course.

If the Lib Dem surge is maintained and they do end up with an extraordinary result, then the histories of this campaign should trace it back to Jeremy Paxman's interview with Nick Clegg last Monday - as my colleague David Grossman suggested in his film on Newsnight on Saturday.

Clegg performed well with Paxman. He made no gaffes, didn't stumble, and wasn't embarrassed at all.

More important it gave Clegg huge confidence ahead of last Thursday's debate, especially at a time when both Gordon Brown and David Cameron seemed to be running scared of Paxman.

(Brown has since agreed to do an interview - next Monday - and Cameron has now agreed in principle at least.)

Nick Clegg certainly seemed to be on excellent form when I followed him to Oldham last Wednesday - relaxed, light-hearted, good humoured, but incisive, an excellent campaigner.

I suspect the Paxman interview may have made a crucial difference to Clegg, persuading him he could really compete with the big boys, and was no longer Calamity Clegg (as the Chris Huhne campaign once dubbed him).

And it may also have sewn a few more doubts in the minds of Cameron and Brown.

The sudden Lib Dem surge is fascinating. Even if it evaporates over the next few days, and Nick Clegg doesn't perform well in the next two debates, it's certainly the most interesting development in any election in the 30 years in which I have been covering them.

Often elections are pretty dull, in fact, though there's a conspiracy of silence amongst journalists not to admit it. But not this time.

The recent polls suggest we could end up with a ludicrous result - with perhaps Labour getting fewest votes of the big three, but most seats, and/or the Lib Dems with most votes and fewest seats.

It may become a question not just of how to form a government, but who has the moral authority and mandate to do so.

What's still rarely mentioned is a GNU, a Government of National Unity, as advocated by Ted Heath in the October 1974 campaign. An administration of all three major parties (and maybe one or two smaller ones too).

After all, it's how Britain dealt with two World Wars, and the economic crisis of the 1930s.

It might also be the best way to agree and present dramatic spending cuts. And it might well be the outcome many voters would prefer.

David Cameron used the term "Big Society" incessantly this morning, but I don't think it works as a slogan.

The problem is that one always has to think for a second or two about what it means.

But good slogans should be immediately recognisable and understandable.

To many voters, Big Society may mean big government, and an all-intervening state, along the lines of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" in America in the 1960s.

But Mr Cameron has made it clear that the kind of big spending and lots of new legislation of the Johnson presidency is exactly what he does not envisage.

Indeed you could argue that the Big Society is another way of saying "socialism".

The real difficulty is the word "big". It often has negative connotations - eg "does my bum look big in this?" Or "Big Brother". Or "He's too big for his boots".

"Great" is a much more positive word than "big", but the trouble is they can't use Great Society because LBJ got there first.

The problem was illustrated twice this morning when Cameron said voters didn't want government that is big. So he ended up decrying half of his own slogan.

I know perfectly well what he is TRYING to do and trying to say, but the language just doesn't work. It's all too confusing.

I don't know the answer, but "big society" isn't it. And in any case it's too late to ditch it now.

Went to David Cameron's speech and questions. The issue of Nick Clegg and the Lib Dem surge dominated the questions of course.

But in half an hour Mr Cameron didn't mention Mr Clegg or his party by name once, though he mentioned Gordon Brown by name, he mentioned Labour by name, and he even mentioned Ed Balls by name.

Until last night the question was how many seats the Liberal Democrats would lose.

Now, after Nick Clegg's performance, the question is whether they will gain seats. And if so, how many?

Seventy-five to 80 seats must be a distinct possibility now. Maybe more if Nick Clegg wins the next two debates as well.

And that makes a hung Parliament a lot more likely.

But the remarkable fact is that if they did get 80 seats the Lib Dems would probably still not have a single black or Asian MP in the new House of Commons.

Their best bet for an ethnic minority MP is probably Luton South, the seat we visited last week. But that's outside the Lib Dems top 33 targets in pure statistical terms based on the swing required.

Qurban Hussain's campaign in Luton South is certainly putting in an impressive effort, and Nick Clegg has visited several times recently.

Within minutes of last night's debate we had goodness how many polls. We had worms. We had word clouds. We had blogs and tweets.

But one thing was sorely missing. Where were the viewing figures? Not even a rough estimate of how many people watched.

Come on TV industry. Get your act together.

It can't be that difficult to work out within minutes - or even live - how many people watched. We're living in the 2010s, not the 1960s.
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The organisers of tonight's debate may insist that the audience aren't allowed to clap, or jeer or cheer. And the audience may be polite and comply.

But the one thing the controllers can't prevent is laughter. And that could well prove the decider.

Those obsessive-leaflet gatherers at the Straight Choice website have made a couple of more interesing observations today.

First, there's been a significant change, they say, on national Lib Dem leaflets, or national leaflets customised for local Lib Dem candidates:

Vince Cable is now getting pretty much equal billing, if not better billing, than the leader Nick Clegg.

This seems to be a national Lib Dem decision, not a consensus by local candidates.

Second, they reckon it's possible to work out which Conservative candidates have been blessed with "Ashcroft Money".

Not only are these leaflets glossier and more colourful than other candidates', but they are also carry an imprint for a firm called TPF Ltd.

Yesterday I blogged about the only photo of Gordon Brown on any Labour leaflet being for the local constituency campaign for, er .... Gordon Brown himself, in Kirkcaldy.

The Straight Choice organiser Richard Pope tells me this was based on 262 Labour leaflets from 101 seats gathered from the start of this year.

In contrast, David Cameron appears on about half of the 209 leaflets they have collected so far from 97 constituencies.

PS another reminder that as part of Newsnight's election coverage I am asking for your help in monitoring what the parties are promising in the pamphlets they drop through your door - .

As predicted, Chris Leslie selected for Labour in Nottingham East.

Normally I am supposing to be the one who does doorsteps - ambushing politicians with questions they're not expecting.

But this afternoon, filming with the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg at a supermarket in Oldham, the boot was on the other foot:

"Is it true David Cameron's pulled out of his interview with Jeremy Paxman?" he suddenly asked me. "I don't know why, I enjoyed my interview with Jeremy."

So what role is Stephen Byers playing in this election campaign, now that he is stepping down as an MP, and following the exposure by Channel Four that he is in the market for lobbying work at up to £3-5,000?

A 91Èȱ¬ colleague spotted him on a flight to Dubai this morning - in business class (though my colleague was in economy).

No doubt Mr Byers is canvassing ex-pat Labour voters out in the Gulf.

The Conservatives are saying that the British public should become the "24th member of the Cabinet".

This rather suggests that at least nine members of David Cameron's Shadow Cabinet - currently 32 in size - won't make it into his Cabinet.

Which nine are for the chop? I think we should be told.

And if the public is to be the 24th member of the Cabinet, shouldn't we at least be allowed to witness "our" meetings through allowing TV cameras into the Cabinet room?

Oh, and while we're at it, sight of all Cabinet papers please.

The launch of the Conservative manifesto has been a lot more impressive today than Labour yesterday, simply because Cameron has a simple, persuasive, coherent theme.

Indeed, it's perhaps the most powerful and popular slogan in history - essentially Power to the People.

On the other hand, the Conservative document is more badly written than Labour's, full of jargon. And it assumes a fair degree of political knowledge. How many voters know what an RDA is, for example, or an SME?

And what does this policy mean: "develop a measure of well-being that encapsulates the social value of state action". (page 38)

The trouble is, as I've commented before, that Power to the People is not a maxim which Mr Cameron has pursued much in running his own party over the last five years.

The organisers of the Campaign for Conservative Democracy will tell you Mr Cameron's leadership has been more centralised than any in party history.

The activists at Conservative91Èȱ¬.com would probably agree, though they tend to keep quiet about such things these days.

True, Mr Cameron did institute the primary process where power was taken from party members and given to ordinary voters, whether Tory supporters or not.

In fact, I myself participated in one of the first primaries in Battersea. But even the primary operation involved elements of centralisation.

Here, almost off the top of my head, are several more examples of Mr Cameron's centralist tendencies:

The sacking of MPs over expenses, giving no say to their local parties of constituents; the centralised A-list of candidates; imposing shortlists on local constituencies in selections since 1 January this year; controlling the order of the party lists for the 2008 European elections, and stopping activists from sacking Conservative MEPs; by-passing the Shadow Cabinet, and avoiding significant discussion or decision-making at Shadow Cabinet; centralised leaflet formats and wording; centralised and very detailed requirements of candidates for money granted under the Ashcroft strategy; making candidates get approval for articles, literature and even tweets; threatening councillors in East Surrey they would lose the party whip if they complained about the selection of Sam Gyimah; telling activists in Westminster North they had no option but to keep Joanne Cash as their candidate, or the local party would be disbanded; the huge influence of a small group of unelected individuals around David Cameron; the taking of the whip away from the Croydon MP Andrew Pelling before he had ever been charged with any offence (which he never was).

Labour, of course, has similar centralist traits, as I've often observed over the recent selection processes.

And the Lib Dems too - remember the ruthless way they ditched their candidate in Crewe and Nantwich, just before the by-election.

Oh dear, what has politics come to?

The launch of the Conservative manifesto isn't even in the top five most viewed items on the Telegraph website. No 1? An adult magazine for the blind.

David Cameron clearly needs to improve on the touchy-feely stuff!

Who should I bump into at yesterday's Labour manifesto launch but David Abrahams.

You'll remember him. He was the controversial businessman who was exposed two years ago for having given more than £600,000 to Labour through proxy donors.

A Metropolitan Police inquiry found he hadn't broken the law, but his gifts through third parties were certainly against the spirit of the law on campaign money - Labour's own law, passed in 2000.

I was amazed that the Labour high command let him in, especially given how hard it is for everyone else to get in.

I can only assume he is making donations again. Big ones.

But when I asked him Mr Abrahams refused to say. I didn't have time to show our exchanges on Newsnight, so here they are:

Those wonderful people at the website, who are valiantly trying to post all election leaflets on their website, have unearthed a rare specimen.

They say Gordon Brown has been spotted at last on a Labour leaflet.

The only drawback is that it is !

Still, there must be other Labour candidates out there who have used pictures of Mr Brown. I remember how, at the 2008 Labour conference, there were scores of candidates queuing up to have their pictures taken with the PM.

Where are those pictures now?

PS As part of Newsnight's election coverage I am asking for your help in monitoring what the parties are promising in the pamphlets they drop through your door - .

The Conservatives have contacted me to stress that David Cameron's visit to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital was a mere visit - not a camapign meeting on the lines of Labour's manifesto launch on Monday.

They point me to .

The important passage seems to be the final line of the second paragraph: "it is advised that Election meetings should not be permitted on NHS premises".

Cabinet Office General Election Guidance 2010 rules out holding Election meetings on NHS premises - on page 38 it reads:

"1. Neither Ministers, nor any other Parliamentary candidates, should involve Government establishments or offices (such as Jobcentres) in the General Election campaign by visiting them for electioneering purposes.

"2. In the case of NHS property, decisions are for the relevant NHS Trust but should visits be permitted to, for example, hospitals, the Department of Health and the Scottish Executive advise that there should be no disruption to services and the same facilities should be available to other candidates. In any case, it is advised that Election meetings should not be permitted on NHS premises."

Today's news that the three Labour MPs being prosecuted over their expenses are being given legal aid, reminds me of just how ruthless political parties can be when there's an election in the offing.

You may recall that a few weeks ago it was revealed that the solicitor being employed by the three MPs is Gerald Shamash, who has handled many of the Labour Party's biggest legal cases over the past 20 years.

Labour was especially embarrassed by this news since Mr Shamash was helping the MPs argue their case that they should be exempt from prosecution because of parliamentary privilege.

I should stress that Labour was not paying Mr Shamash for this work. But as soon as his role for the MPs became public knowledge, he was immediately dropped by the party until further notice. It was all too embarrassing for Gordon Brown.

That seemed a pretty rough way to treat a solicitor who has helped Labour get through some sticky legal situations, often, I imagine, at pretty generous rates.

Indeed Labour probably accounts for the bulk of Mr Shamash's casework, if nor earnings, in recent years.

And the decision to drop Mr Shamash seemed especially harsh since the three Labour MPs had actually gone to the Labour hierarchy to ask whom they should approach for legal advice.

And it was Labour, I understand, who advised them to go to Gerald Shamash.
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The Conservatives campaign seems amazingly flush with funds. My colleagues tell me that at their press conference this afternoon to rebut Labour's manifesto, their cakes had gold leaf on them. Not real gold leaf, surely?

Though I am told the tea was "a bit weak".

Last week at the Michael Caine event they served up an amazing breakfast, including smoked salmon bagels, yoghurt and fruit, smoothies, sausage sandwiches, and everything else you could ever dream of. All put on by a professional catering company.‬‪

And Labour today? Nothing, so far as I could see, apart a few bottles of water.

The lavish refreshments at Conservative events are a sign that the party has more a lot money than it needs to keep within the national legal spending limit of around £19m.

According to one Conservative source the party already has £5m more than it needs, and every day the party is raising many thousands of pounds more.

Indeed, by 6 May the Conservatives may have enough spare cash to be able to fight a whole new campaign, while the Liberal Democrats and Labour will probably be teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

When Labour said today that this would be a "word-of-mouth" campaign, I thought: "Yeah, that's what publishers say when they haven't got any money to promote my books."

This disparity could have big implications if there's a hung parliament. David Cameron will quite cheerfully be able to threaten: "OK, let's have another election."

Labour and the Lib Dems, in contrast, will want to do everything to avoid one.
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So was Labour breaking Cabinet Office rules by using NHS premises to launch its manifesto this morning (at what looked distinctly like a political meeting to me)?

Gordon Brown, pressed by Adam Boulton of Sky News, said it wasn't a problem as under PFI the building still belonged to the constructors, Balfour Beatty.

A few minutes ago the NHS Trust and Balfour Beatty issued the following joint statement.

"On the day the General Election was called University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust had already agreed to a media event involving David Cameron and the Conservative Party at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Subsequently, and in the interests of impartiality, the Trust was obliged to consider a request by the Labour Party to stage a general election event at the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham. Permission for use of the building was sought from Balfour Beatty as the new hospital is not Trust property until it is handed over in mid April 2010."

This does not answer the question I asked Balfour Beatty - did Labour pay them to use their building? From their above statement, I assume not.

A Balfour Beatty spokeswoman did tell me tonight, however: "We did give the NHS permission for something which the NHS had arranged."

A source in the corporate events industry estimates that hiring such a venue in Birmingham could cost about £7,500.

So if Labour didn't pay Balfour Beatty, it must have been a gift in kind, in which case Labour will have to declare it to the Electoral Commission. The same may apply to the Conservatives, depending on the scale of their event.

The new hospital in not due to open until June. I think I can guarantee that if David Cameron becomes PM he'll be offering to open it.

In Luton on Friday I asked the independent Esther Rantzen what Shaun Woodward, her former protege from That's Life days, thought about her standing as an independent there.

Mr Woodward is of course now the Northern Ireland Secretary and an important Labour strategist.

Mr Woodward supported her standing, she said, before adding quickly that he didn't necessarily support her standing in Luton South.

Nottingham East update

I now understand Labour's candidate in Nottingham East - certain to be Chris Leslie - won't not now be chosen until Wednesday.

Nor will local members have any say in the process - Mr Leslie will simply be imposed on the local party by Labour's national Special Selections Panel.

One leading Nottingham Labour activist told Newsnight: "This goes totally against everything Gordon Brown said at the manifesto launch about opening up democracy."

Why do so many candidates in this election seem to avoid telling us what job they do?

I was alerted to this by my former wife Margaret, who texted me yesterday to say that Nicola Blackwood, the Conservative candidate in her seat, Oxford West and Abingdon, doesn't even say on her website .

She tells us at length how she was educated at both Oxford and Cambridge universities, and is an accomplished classical singer, and about her volutary work. But nothing about what she does for a living. An oversight perhaps.

It's a trend I'd noticed before. I looked up the pile of leaflets I'd collected from the candidates in Luton South last Friday. The same thing.

Labour's Gavin Shuker proudly tells us his father and grandfather both worked at Vauxhall, but there's nothing about his own job.

In four leaflets the Lib Dem Qurban Hussain tells us of his work as a local councillor, but nothing of his job.

The same with the two leaflets I got from the Conservative Nigel Huddlestone.

And it's the same on other candidates' leaflets and websites.

Yet if someone came to you for a job, surely the first thing you would ask them is what job they're doing now.

Perhaps these candidates do something socially disreputable - City bankers, or social workers, or estate agents... or TV reporters.

But not all of them, surely?

In a few cases they may want to disguise the fact that in winnable seats candidates have sometimes become full-time politicians, and given up their jobs, long before they are elected.

Or perhaps they feel that telling us what job they do would put off a substantial chunk of the electorate.

It's very strange. Especially when all the parties are preaching openness and transparency.

And especially at a time when it's increasingly thought that politicians should have some experience of the outside world and real life.

I'm travelling up to Birmingham on the same train as most of the Cabinet, it seems.

Manifesto launches, like Cabinet meetings, seem to have become a new branch of regional policy, with huge benefits to Virgin Rail.

It's great to see figures such as Alistair Darling, Ed Miliband, Tessa Jowell and their advisers all travelling second class.

Just like me, I should stress.

Could the soaring price of petrol become a big election issue?

The price has soared above 120 pence a litre this week, in some cases a lot higher.

I've learnt that BP is quite worried about the possibility of organised protests by angry customers at their garages this weekend.

They've been advising staff in their garages in London and Oxford what to do if trouble erupts outside the pumps.

UPDATE - It seems that this weekend's possible protests at BP garages may be nothing to do with the rising price of petrol, but in opposition to the firm's .

Labour's high command is trying to parachute Chris Leslie into Nottingham East as their candidate.

The former minister and MP for Shipley will formally be selected at a hustings meeting on Monday night.

Peter Kenyon has more on .

This must be bad news for two others who have been mentioned as being interested in the seat - Jonathan Ashworth, who comes from the East Midlands and works for Gordon Brown in Downing Street, and the defence minister Quentin Davies, who defected from the Conservatives in 2007.

Mr Davies isn't standing for his current Grantham and Stamford seat, as he knows he'd never get re-elected there under his new colours.

So the upper chamber may soon be getting yet another Lord Davies.

What's surprising is how there hasn't been a new rush of retirements by MPs since the election was called on Tuesday.

It doesn't look like there will be many more parachute drops.

There is likely to be a revolt by party members in Nottingham East, but from the experience of Stoke-on-Trent Central, it is unlikely to get anywhere.

I have only just noticed that Harry Mount has attacked the 91Èȱ¬ in his blog for the Telegraph over my report on Newsnight on Tuesday night.

He accuses us of being "infantile" and "patronising", of both "sexing up" serious news and "dumbing down".

"Why," he writes, "does the patronising 91Èȱ¬ insist on presenting electioneering in the style of a children's programme?"

OK, I'll admit . And indeed, there are occasions when he might have a point.

However, is this the same Telegraph, I wonder, whose daily paper almost always has a very large photo of a woman on its front page, and usually a rather attractive woman at that?

And the photo selection in its news pages seems to show a similar marked preference for young and pretty females.

Sexing up? Dumbing down? Patronising? Perish the thought.

David Cameron was risking things a bit when he visited a Warburton's bread factory in Bolton yesterday and admitted that he has a his own-bread making machine at home.

"Here I am at a bakery," he told the workers. "The thing is the other day I went out and bought my own breadmaker."

Reports say this was followed by an "audible hiss", before Mr Cameron admitted he hadn't actually managed to make the machine work properly.

I'm slightly mystified by this story.

Mr Cameron said he bought his machine "the other day", but I seem to remember him proudly showing off his new bread-maker to me when I visited him at his constituency home when he was running for leader back in 2005, almost five years ago.

Indeed, I was so impressed I thought of getting one myself.

Perhaps my memory is playing awful tricks on me. Or perhaps it was Samantha's bread-machine he showed me... and Mr Cameron was so impressed he went out and bought his own.

One bread machine, or two? I suppose critics will say it just shows how the Camerons are upper crust.

Newsnight is planning to do an outside broadcast from Luton tomorrow night, home of Margaret Moran, one of the Labour MPs shamed by the expenses scandal.

So imagine my surprise when a man called Chris Hall from Luton Council rang my producer to say: "I just want to make sure you're not portraying Luton in a bad light."

It seems astonishing in an age of tight spending in local government - mind you, there's always tight spending in local government - that councils have enough money to employ people to go out of their way to ring TV producers to get them not to say anything horrible about their towns.

Luton? A bad light? Wouldn't dream of it.

I'll be there tomorrow.

I was amsued to see that the journalist Dominic Carman, who has just published an independent biography of the BNP leader Nick Griffin, is standing as the Lib Dem candidate against Mr Griffin in Barking.

Is this the first case of a biographer standing against the person they have written about? I can't think of any other examples.

Some years ago Dominic Carman wrote a brilliant biography of his late father, the famous QC George Carman. It was a warts-and-all book, which went into great detail about his father's amazing appetite for gambling and drink, and how it never seemed to affect his performance in court. I cited the book as one of my favourite biographies in The Week magazine.

George Carman once acted for the footballer George Best (who enjoyed similar vices, plus sex). One of the most memorable passages in the biography invoves Dominic at his prep school, where he could see his family home every day from the school playing field.

He and his fellow pupils spotted George Best's distinctive E-type Jag parked outside the house on several afternoons. Not because Best was in legal consultations with his dad, but because he was having sex with Mrs Carman.

The organisers of the TV debates must be kicking themselves this morning, following Manchester United's exit from the European Cup.

As I reported a few weeks ago, they were originally hoping to hold the TV debates on Tuesdays or Wednesdays in the last three weeks of the campaign. But then somebody realised that in the last two weeks these would clash with the semi-finals of the European Cup. On past form these would almost certainly involve English clubs - three English sides have reached the semis in each of the last three years.

But this morning no English sides are left in the cup. United and Arsenal were both eliminated this week, Chelsea and Liverpool in earlier rounds. So they could have held the TV debates on Tuesdays and Wednesdays after all.

Indeed, Thursday is now a worse night for the TV debates in terms of competiton from football since, if results go well this evening, Liverpool and/or Fulham could be in the semi-finals of the stupidly-titled Europa League, broadcast on Channel 5 on the last two Thursdays this month.

I've been with in Liverpool this afternoon with the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, who visted a new community centre in Penny Lane, of Beatles fame.

And whilst I'd managed to watch Mr Clegg in the Commons at Prime Minister's Questions, and still got to Euston in time for the 1.07pm train, he insisted on flying up here by private plane.

The slogan at the local John Lennon Airport is "Above Us Only Skies", from Lennon's famous song Imagine.

But I'm told the baggage-handlers at the airport prefer a different line from the song: "Imagine No Possessions".

My old friend Iain Dale has left me terribly confused.

, Iain lambasts our poor Prime Minister for blanking me twice yesterday, when I tried to ask him questions oo the platform of Gillingham station.

Iain writes: "Gordon Brown's refusal to even acknowledge Michael Crick's presence in the was almost comical. What did it achieve? Certainly nothing positive. There is a way to deal with journalists like Crick but ignoring them is not one of them."

And yet the same Iain Dale advised candidates: "Ignore Michael Crick. He is not there to help you."

Come off it, Iain, Mr Brown was only following your advice.

On the day that Labour - once again - promises a referendum on electoral reform, it's worth speculating why hardly any prominent Conservatives support changing the voting system.

Many Labour people were converted to proportional representation (PR) by the party's four successive election defeats between 1979 and 1992. And yet the Conservatives three defeats since 1997 haven't had a similar effect on them.

This is all the more surprising when quite a few prominent Tories did support PR when the party was previously in opposition during the 1970s. Among them, I recall, was Douglas Hurd. But then during the Thatcher years support for PR died out almost completely in the Conservative Party, and now has become very unfashionable.

I was talking recently to a prominent member of the Shadow Cabinet, who clearly does support PR, but realises it would do him no good to say so publicly. This senior Conservative even pointed out that the Tories in Scotland and Wales have only really survived these last few years thanks to the fact that the Scottish and Welsh assemblies are elected by PR.

This has given the Tories a lifeline of representation in Scotland and Wales, when they might have ended up with very few seats - or perhaps none at all - under the old first past the post system.

Now the British electoral system may be on the point of inficting a huge injustice on the Conservatives. It's quite possible that the Tories get substantially more votes than Labour at this election, but still get fewer seats.

If that happens Britain could end up with a far bigger row than Florida in 2000. And in such circumstances would the Conservatives still be so resolute in backing first past the post?

Gordon Brown also visited Gillingham today, the seat which produced the most celebrated photo of the 2005 election.

To show that he and Brown were now all lovey-dovey Tony Blair famously bought his chancellor a 99 cornet from a parked ice-cream van.

So, as the PM visited a family on a middle class estate in Gillingham this afternoon, we naturally felt in need of some cool refreshment as we were forced to wait outside.

After a call from Hugh, my producer, the charming Di of Marke's ice-creams duly arrived outside the house, music blaring (or blairing), with her yellow van.

I ordered a 99 for myself, and "another for my friend Gordon".

All harmless fun, surely?

But Labour officials did not seem to appreciate the reference, or the joke. And Hugh ended up eating Gordon's 99 to stop it melting all over my suit.

Still, I tried.

I had the pleasure of travelling back on the same train as Gordon Brown, even though on the platform at Gillingham he twice declined my offer to have a word with us.

Mr Brown wasn't in first class (there wasn't a first class), just in a carriage that was specially cordoned off, or gordoned off.

And did the ticket inspector ask the PM to show a ticket?

"I'm not even to allowed to think about it," the inspector told me a few minutes ago.

(You'll recall how Cherie Blair was once fined for not having a train ticket - surely not something Mr and Mrs Brown would ever do.)

This reminds me of a good story that the Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron told at his party's spring conference a few weeks ago about Shirley Williams travelling on a train one day.

As the inspector approached, Lady Williams reached into her handbag for her ticket.

"No, no need," said the inspector, "I know who you are."

"But I need my ticket to see where I'm going," the notoriously absent-minded Lady Williams explained.

I love the way in which parties subtly manage to blend target seats into their flagship policies.

Will any other policy launch during this campaign mention more current Lib Dem seats, and target seats, than the Liberal Democrats managed at their launch of their policy on the railways on Monday?

Quite apart from major cities where the Liberal Democrats are defending seats, or targetting possible new ones - Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol and York - they also managed to mention Exeter, Galashiels, Keswick, Kidlington, Okehampton, Ringwood and Southport as benefitting from their programme.

Gordon Brown has often been described as a dark, brooding, forbidding character, often very rude and difficult.

Indeed he's frequently been compared to Mr Rochester - the famous male character in Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre.

Perhaps the Labour campaign organisers were making a small literary joke at the PM's expense today - or the very first venue on Brown's election itinerary, at lunchtime was... Rochester.

"Literally" and "decimate" are two of the most misused words in the English language.

However, I can state with confidence that Conservative leader David Cameron literally plans to decimate the membership of the House of Commons.

It is known in Conservative ranks as the 585 project, the party's plans to reduce the number of MPs by 10% - from 650 to 585.

Some analysts think it is all a populist gimmick and will never happen, but Mr Cameron is absolutely committed to the idea, and, I'm reliably told, his plans are extremely well-advanced.

A bill will be placed before the House of Commons within weeks of him getting elected - if Mr Cameron gets a majority.

The plan is to give the Boundary Commission new rules, and carry out a new boundary review before the next election, assuming a Parliament of the usual four or five years.

Even if the Tories do not have a majority the cull might still happen since the Lib Dems also want to reduce the number of MPs.

So MPs will be under huge pressure in the next Parliament, knowing they face a 10% cull, especially when much of the dead wood has already been pruned away over the last few months, with record numbers of retirements.

The question is how MPs will react to this threat? Will they become more independent-minded, more aware of local constituency feeling?

Or will they toady up to the whips and the party leadership, in the hope that when it comes to the crunch, they might be saved by a diktat from on high - the kind of equivalent of the parachuting operation we've seen in recent weeks?

It's all set to be very interesting.

Just witnessed Gordon Brown going into the Palace.

Only a minute before the police pulled up a huge Ladbrokes advertising trailer which was driving outside.

No doubt there's some law about using Buckingham Palace as an advertising back-drop.

Ladbrokes spokesman David Williams says he was given a £30 on-the-spot fine this morning for erecting two placards with the election odds, on blackboards opposite the palace.

But it didn't deter him - at just £30 a throw he says he's happy to carry on offending all day.

I am reminded of a wonderful occasion from more than 20 years ago when an ITN crew went to interview the Environment Minister William Waldegrave. As it was a lovely day, they all decided to go and do the interview in St James's Park.

Half way through the interview, however, a jobsworth park-keeper approached the group: "Ere, have you got permission to do this interview?"

Whereupon Mr Waldegrave slowly turned to the park-keeper and said: "As the government minister responsible for the Royal Parks, I hereby grant myself permission."

I dearly wish I had been there. Alas, the scene was not captured on film.

The TV historian was tonight picked as Labour's candidate for Stoke-on-Trent Central, in succession to the sitting MP Mark Fisher.

Hunt beat two other contenders, Sajjad-Hussain Malik, an Oxfordshire councillor, and Dr Joe Ukemenan, a journalist from London. But many Labour activists are unhappy at having a three-person shortlist imposed upon them by the party high command, from which all local contenders were excluded.

Some told Newnight today that they might shun Tristram Hunt and back an Independent Labour candidate instead. The constituency secretary Gary Elsby says he will announce tomorrow if he will stand as an Independent.

Hunt won overwhelming with 50 votes, while his opponents, Saj Malik and Joe Ukemenem got seven and six votes respectively. Earlier, a rebel attempt to stop the vote was beaten by a margin of about two to one.

Tonight I will be reporting on almost the mirror story to Surrey East - Stoke-on-Trent Central - where local members will decide this evening whether or not to back Peter Mandelson's favoured candidate, the historian Tristram Hunt.

Some local Labour members in Stoke are so angry about the shortlist that's being imposed on them that they are threatening to back an Independent Labour candidate

The Surrey Mirror has reported that 100 members of the Conservative association in Surrey East have signed a petition calling on David Cameron to remove Sam Gyimah as Conservative candidate.