Election 2010: When political stunts go bad

Gordon Brown reacting as he is replayed comments picked up from a microphone he thought was off earlier in the day, during a radio interview for the BBC, in Manchester. Brown apologised during the interview for his commments about voter Gillian Duffy, while out on the election campaign trail in Rochdale
Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

David Cameron at a Conservative rally at Milton Keynes Academy. The Tory leader might be looking busy with his notes, but being close to that poster is no accident
Photograph: Rex Features

David Cameron on the BBC Politics Show on 28 March. The cropped programme title in the background has spelled out the word "posh"
Photograph: BBC

David Cameron rolls up his sleeves to talk to staff at the Morrisons distribution centre in Kent
Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA

Party political crisp packets featuring photographs of the three main party leaders. Whose bright idea was that?
Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

David Cameron, in a familiar PR move, arrives at the Commons for the last PMQs before the election. Cycling groups then lambasted him for not wearing a helmet
Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA

We're not sure why Conservative party chairman Eric Pickles posed outside this particular attraction at Blackpool beach
Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP, campaigns for support in Dagenham with his wife, Jackie. The man on the right is allegedly his bodyguard... dressed as a soldier ... though controversy followed as the man turned out not to be a soldier but a BNP activist. The MoD confirmed that services personnel are are not allowed to attend political meetings in uniform
Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah meet patients and staff at the Yeadon health centre in Yorkshire. The doors were obviously too heavy
Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Between a rock and a hard place: Business secretary Lord Mandelson holds a traditional piece of seaside rock which has the Labour party election slogan running through it
Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Peter Mandelson shows off his moves as he dances with Hanna Mackenzie, an ex-spiritual healer, at the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool before the leaders' debate on 15 April
Photograph: Graeme Robertson

Masks of Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg are made available to visitors to new ultimate rollercoaster THI3TEEN at the Alton Towers resort, for a daily poll aiming to show the nation's voting intentions
Photograph: Gary Calton

Gordon Brown on a visit to a house in Bedworth, where they were having a St George's Day party
Photograph: Peter Jordan

David Cameron visits a bus run by the charity XLP
Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

Mini lego figures of Nick Clegg and David Cameron carrying Gordon Brown out of Downing Street of Miniland, at Legoland in Windsor, Berkshire
Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

Mannequins of Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg with a noose hung in front of them (to represent a hung parliament you see, though strictly speaking, it would be a hanged parliament) during a photocall at the London Dungeon
Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters