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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow, Nadia Khomami and Esther Addley

Scottish leaders' debate: Sturgeon hints at second independence referendum after 2016 - as it happened

Nicola Sturgeon and Jim Murphy take part in the Scottish Television Debate.
Nicola Sturgeon and Jim Murphy take part in the Scottish Television Debate. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Evening summary

  • Sturgeon has said the SNP would help make Ed Miliband prime minister. (See 11.13pm.)
  • Jim Murphy, the Scottish Labour leader, has said Labour would not have to make cuts after 2016. (See 11.13pm.)

That’s all from me for tonight.

Thanks for the comments.

Why Sturgeon's comments about a second referendum could harm the SNP

It should be no surprise that Nicola Sturgeon is toying with the idea of another referendum. The SNP is still in favour of independence, and the result of September’s vote, 55% no, 45% yes, was close enough to leave the matter unresolved.

But the experience of Quebec has shown that, even in places where there is strong support for independence, pushing this to a vote can be counter-productive. That is why Sturgeon’s comments could be unhelpful.

In 1995 Quebec voted by a tiny margin against independence. But this did not permanently damage the electoral prospects of the Parti Québécois, the separatist party, and last year it was in power running a minority government. It called a snap election at a time when it was expected to win a majority. But it lost badly. And, as this Guardian article explains, that was to a large extent because voters thought that giving the PQ a majority would trigger another referendum.

More importantly, did this mean Quebec would have to endure another referendum? This became the PQ’s endgame. [Pauline] Marois [the PQ leader] repeated her answer: probably not. But she couldn’t promise that she wouldn’t hold one, as her party’s own platform clearly calls for one to be held once the “winning conditions” are in place. And that was too much for Quebec voters to endure. Reminders of the economic fallout from the last referendum – 1995, when the federalists won by a razor-thin margin of less than 1% – left many voters recoiling at the thought of another acrimonious push for secession from Canada.

Scottish leaders' debate - Key quotes

Here are some of the key quotes from the Scottish leaders debate.

Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy and First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon go head to head
Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy and First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon go head to head Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Here is are the key quotes from Nicola Sturgeon on a second referendum.

  • Sturgeon suggested the SNP could push for a second referendum after 2016. This is what she initially said about another referendum.

I respect the result of the referendum last year, it was a hard fought, passionate campaign, I gave it my everything to persuade people to vote yes, the country didn’t vote yes and I respect that. This Westminster election is not a re-run of the referendum campaign, if you vote SNP in this election it doesn’t mean Scotland has another referendum, or becomes independent as a result.

But, when Bernard Ponsonby asked her about a referendum after the 2016 election, she replied:

That’s another matter. We will write that manifesto when we get there. I will fight one election at a time. I’m putting forward in a couple of weeks a manifesto for this election and I will decide the content of our next manifesto when we get there, and people can decide whether or not they vote for that.

If the people of Scotland don’t vote for a party with a commitment in a manifesto to a referendum, there won’t be another referendum, that’s the point I’m making. The people are in charge, not politicians.

  • She said the SNP would help make Ed Miliband prime minister. This is what she said to Jim Muphy when he asked if she wanted Miliband to be PM.

I don’t want David Cameron to be prime minister, I’m offering to help make Ed Miliband prime minister.

  • She said Labour was not offering an alternative to the Tories.

The Labour Party right now is not offering an alternative to Tory austerity, I stood on a platform last week in the UK leaders debate with Ed Miliband and I heard Miliband say if Labour is elected and left to their own devices there will be further spending reductions.

I don’t want to see further spending reductions, I don’t think the country can afford them. That’s why we’re proposing modest spending increases and with SNP influence we can force Labour down that path.

  • Murphy said Labour would not have to make cuts after 2016. He told Sturgeon.

The IFS have been very clear. We don’t have to make further cuts after after 2015-16.

He was referring to what the IFS said in its post-budget briefing. also rejected claims that Labour voted for £30bn’s worth of cuts, saying the £30bn figure did not even appear in the charter for budget responsibility that Labour MPs recently voted for.

  • He said he wanted “a world free of nuclear weapons”.

I want a world free of nuclear weapons but we cannot uninvent the technology, we have to negotiate away the capability. The last Labour government did cut the number of warheads by a higher proportion than any other nation on earth.

I don’t want just a Scotland free of nuclear weapons, I don’t think it makes much sense to just move our weapons to the north of England, I want them off the face of the planet altogether but in a world where Iran has been trying to get a nuclear bomb and North Korea is also trying, I think it’s a much safer thing to negotiate with the Americans, the French and all those other nations so that we can free not just one country but the entire planet of these weapons of mass destruction.

  • He said it was “ludicrous” of Sturgeon to suggest Labour would rather see Cameron as prime minister than work with the SNP.

I’m trying to make a reasonable point and as often is the case you go off on one. The Labour Party and the Tory party are just so different. Nicola, the only way to lock out the Tory party is to give the keys to the Labour Party. That’s the only way of preventing a Tory government.

  • Ruth Davidson mocked the SNP’s stance on Labour.

Why is Nicola running around saying ‘Labour is rubbish, vote for me so I can put them in office’?

  • Davidson said the Conservatives would not do a post-election deal with Ukip.

There will be no deals with Ukip. They won’t have enough MPs in parliament, they will not get into double digits in parliament in order to be able to have a coalition deal so there will be no deal. I’ve already said my preference is minority government, the prime minister said if he doesn’t get a majority his preference is minority government.

  • Willie Rennie said the Lib Dems would not work with the SNP in government.

We’re prepared to work with other parties where we can agree, we’ve showed that in the last five years. But I don’t think it would be reasonable to put a party that’s in favour of breaking up the United Kingdom in charge of the United Kingdom. I don’t think you could really put the SNP in charge. What I’m in favour of is making sure we have a stable partnership in the United Kingdom that carries on the economic progress we’ve made in the last five years and does it fairly.

Updated

On Newsnight Michael Gove has just said the consensus is that Ruth Davidson won tonight’s debate. He clearly has not read my blog. (See 10.45pm.) There is no real consensus.

Michael Gove interviewed on Newsnight Election 2015
Michael Gove interviewed on Newsnight Election 2015 Photograph: BBC

Updated

Scottish leaders's debate - Verdict from the Twitter commentariat

Here is a selection of some of the most interesting comments on the debate I’ve seen from journalists and commentators, from Scotland and England, on Twitter.

There is no real consensus.

Updated

According to the Sun’s Steve Hawkes, the Twitter sentiment tracker worm says Nicola Sturgeon won.

But that’s not a huge surprise. If Twitter sentiment was anything to go by, Scotland voted 80/20 in favour of independence.

Here’s a tweet from the SNP’s Pete Wishart, and comment from the Scotsman’s David Maddox.

Here’s the bloke with the ‘tash. (See 8.54pm.)

Scottish leaders' debate - Snap verdict

Scottish leaders’ debate - Snap verdict: Ruth Davidson and Jim Murphy probably did best. Nicola Sturgeon did not crash, not by any means, but she certainly did not shine in the way she did last week, when novelty and outsiderhood - two qualities she cannot deploy in Edinburgh - were working in her favour.

The key clash was between Sturgeon and Murphy, and in the opening exchanges, as I said earlier, they were deadlocked. (See 8.35pm.) But, when they came back for round two, Murphy probably prevailed. (See 9.49pm). The argument about whether or not Labour would work with the SNP is essentially a silly one, because of course they would. It’s just an argument about whether it’s best to admit it; a dispute, in other words, between a pluralist, pragmatist approach, and conventional “no compromise” electioneering. But Murphy’s “Don’t be ludicrous” putdown seemed to clinch it.

Murphy was also robust on the subject of cuts. I’ll have to check exactly what he said about the possibility of no further cuts under Labour after 2016. Some colleagues seem to think he went further than Ed Balls, although the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that Labour could largely avoid further cuts after 2015-16 because of its proposed slower pace of deficit reduction.

Davidson was the most combative of the four leaders. Partly because she had the ideological space on the right all to herself, she was able to make an impact. But it was not just that; it was the fact that she was willing to engage with questions, and answer them directly (eg, on a pact with Ukip) that made her sound refreshingly more candid than her English colleagues. And when did you last hear any politician make the case for user charges, as she did with prescriptions?

It is never good to go into a debate as the frontrunner and that was partly’s Sturgeon’s handicap. But she may have also stumbled over a second referendum. For some time now it has been clear that the SNP’s promise of no further referendum for a generation meant no such thing, but this evening Sturgeon hinted that the SNP would propose one in their manifesto for the 2016 Scottish elections and then seek to hold one in the event of victory. There are plenty of people currently planning to vote SNP who do not support independence, and such blatant “neverendum” talk could put them off.

Updated

Ruth Davidson says she wants a Scotland where pensioner poverty continues to fall, and jobs continue to rise. That kind of Scotland does not happen by accident. You have to vote for it, she says. You must vote Scottish Conservative.

Ruth Davidson
Ruth Davidson. Photograph: STV

Willie Rennie say he came into politics to make things better for everyone. It has been a tough five years. But the coalition has delivered growth, with fairness. He wants that to continue, he says. You get fairness with economic strength with the Lib Dems, he says.

Willie Rennie.
Willie Rennie. Photograph: STV

Updated

Final statements

Jim Murphy says Scotland is desperate for change. There is only one guaranteed way of replacing the Tories; that is with Labour. Labour have a plan for hope, he says. It has a plan for workers and for the NHS. This is a two-for-one election. You can vote SNP and get Cameron.

Jim Murphy
Jim Murphy. Photograph: STV

Nicola Sturgeon says if you vote SNP, you will get the SNP. The SNP will never support the Tories. But it will work with others for progressive causes. Vote for the Westminster parties, and they will go back to “business as usual”. A vote for the SNP is a vote for progressive change across the UK.

Nicola Sturgeon
Nicola Sturgeon. Photograph: Graeme Hunter/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Ponsonby asks the questioner for his reaction. He says he would like to know what they really think. He would like to see the progressive parties work together.

Davidson says the SNP opposed Labour when it was led by towering figures like John Smith.

But, now it is led by Ed Miliband, it wants to work with Labour.

Why? It’s because the SNP can push Miliband around. They will help them achieve their larger aim of independence, Davidson says.

Q: The poll suggest no party will achieve a majority. What other party would you work with?

Murphy says with the Labour party in England and Wales. He wants a coalition with them.

Q: What’s your second preference?

Murphy says he is determined to see Labour win. Cameron will cling on to power if Labour does not become the biggest party.

Sturgeon says the questioner is right. It is time to reflect the reality of that. The SNP won’t support the Tories in government. But it will work with Labour to kep the Tories out. Why can’t Labour bring themselves to say they would do the same.

“Don’t be ludicrous,” says Murphy. He says she is trying t make a reasonable point, but, as so often, she has “gone off on one”. The only way to lock Cameron out of Number 10 is to give the keys to Labour.

Sturgeon says she has a simple question: Will Labour work with the SNP? Yes or no?

Murphy says Labour has voted against every Tory Queen’s Speech.

Sturgeon suggests that he is saying yes.

Davidson says Sturgeon is the highest paid woman in politics. She should not get free asprin from the GP. She should have to pay for that.

The NHS in Scotland is under-performing. Let’s raise more money to improve it, she says.

Sturgeon says people should be sceptical of parties that promise not to introduce tuition fees, but then introduce them. She says Labour did not abolish them in Scotland. Instead they took them from the front end and put them at the back end. The SNP abolished them altogether.

On prescription charges, she says they used to apply to people earning as low as £16,000. If you introduce many exemptions, that becomes expensive. That is why it was simpler to scrap them, she says.

Davidson says she went to university in 1996 and got a full grant. Then they were taken away. In Scotland fewer people from poor families are going to university than in England. She does not want to see the binman have to pay for the duke’s daughter to go to university. She thinks people who benefit from university should pay for it.

And she says she would like to see prescription fees brought back in Scotland. People used to be happy to pay for them. That money needs to go to people who need it, she says.

Murphy says Labour will use the mansion tax to pay for more nurses in Scotland. He does not give a damn what Boris Johnson thinks about that, he says.

According to James Maxwell, Labour strategists are looking cheerful in the spin room.

Jim Murphy says the next Labour government might not have to make cuts after 2016.

Davidson says there is a massive difference between her and Murphy. He crashed the economy, she wants to repair it.

Ruth Davidson says there is a massive difference between her and Labour’s Jim Murphy.
Ruth Davidson says there is a massive difference between her and Labour’s Jim Murphy. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA

Murphy says she seems to have adopted the approach, “if you can’t be right, be wrong loudly”.

He mentions zero-hours contracts. Davidson claims 68 MPs employ people on ZHCs.

Sturgeon says this is a manufactured argument. Labour and the Tories both voted for £30bn more cuts. To Murphy, she says he talks the language of ending austerity, but votes for more facts.

Murphy, quoting the late American senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, says Sturgeon is entitled to her own opinions but not her own fact. He produces the document Labour backed.

Rennie says Davidson has revealed the truth face of the Conservative party. They don’t think the rich should have to pay more.

Updated

Open debate

We are now into the final section of the programme, an open debate.

Q: What do the leaders say about their tax and spending plans?

Ruth Davidson says the Tories know they can get more money by a crackdown on tax evasion.

Nicola Sturgeon says she takes a different view; she is proposing modest increases in spending, she says. How much would it cost? It would take two or three years more to completely eliminate the deficit. But it is a price worth paying.

Davidson tries to get in. She says Sturgeon said cuts worth £30bn were savage, but extra borrowing worth £150bn was modest.

Jim Murphy says we need to end the scandal of low pay. It is “disgusting” and “immoral” that parents can go to work and stop off on the way home at a food bank. Labour will end this, he says.

Willie Rennie says the Tories want to cut too much, and Labour wants to borrow too much. Davidson tells him the Lib Dems voted for the cuts.

First Minister and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has make-up reapplied during a break in the debate
Nicola Sturgeon has make-up reapplied during a break in the debate Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Updated

Sturgeon on a second referendum - Verdict from the Twitter commentariat

Nicola Sturgeon’s comment about a second referendum is generating a lot of interest from journalists on Twitter.

And this is from the Economist’s Jeremy Cliffe.

Willie Rennie questioned

Willie Rennie is taking questions now.

Q; What would your party to do stop the use of food banks?

Rennie says the use of food banks is terrible. But the government is trying to get the economy moving.

Willie Rennie
Willie Rennie Photograph: Graeme Hunter /AFP/Getty Images

Q: Is the case for Trident not stronger than ever?

Sturgeon says the vast majority of countries in the world do not have nuclear weapons. They cannot be used because of the devastation they would cause. Jim Murphy said he wanted multilateral disarmament. But there is no point spending £100bn to have multilateral disarmament, he says.

Q: Will the SNP continue to campaign for full independence despite the referendum result?

Sturgeon says she is not going to pretend she does not still want independence. But she respects the result of the referendum.

This is a Westminster election. If the SNP win, that does not mean there will be another referendum.

Q: What about after 2016?

That’s another matter, says Sturgeon. Let’s fight one election at a time.

This generates some jeers from the audience.

Q: You said it would not happen again for a generation. Will you respect that?

Sturgeon says if the people of Scotland do not vote for a party pledging a referendum, there won’t be a referendum.

Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t rule out an independence referendum post-2016, during the Scotland leader debates.
Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t rule out an independence referendum post-2016, during the Scotland leader debates. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA
  • Sturgeon suggests SNP could push for a second independence referendum after 2016.

Updated

Nicola Sturgeon questioned

Nicola Sturgeon is now taking questions.

Q: With the national debt so high, who in the right mind would borrow more?

Sturgeon says it is important to get the deficit and the debt down. But what matters is how it is done. If the policy is holding back growth, it should be changed.

Under her plans, the deficit would fall in each year of the next parliament. But it would take longer to get rid of the deficit than the other parties propose, she says.

Nicola Sturgeon
Nicola Sturgeon Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Sturgeon says SNP would help Miliband become PM

Here’s the start of the Press Association’s story about the opening of the debate.

The leaders of the four main political parties in Scotland interact with audience members before they go head to head in the debate.
The leaders of the four main political parties in Scotland interact with audience members before they go head to head in the debate. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA

Nicola Sturgeon has pledged that the SNP would help make Labour’s Ed Miliband prime minister if the Conservatives fail to win a majority in next month’s general election.

The Scottish first minister made the offer as she clashed with Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy in the first televised Scottish leaders debate.

Murphy insisted his party did not need “help” from the nationalists to oust Conservative David Cameron from 10 Downing Street.

The Scottish Labour leader asked the first minister: “Nicola, do you want Ed Miliband to be prime minister?”

She told him: “I’ don’t want David Cameron to be prime minister, I’m offering to help make Ed Miliband prime minister.”

Murphy insisted: “Nicola, we don’t need your help. What we need is people north and south of the border, people in Scotland, people in England and people in across Wales coming together to kick out an out of touch government.”

Sturgeon however insisted that the Labour Party did not offer an alternative to austerity, and SNP MPs were needed in Westminster to keep them “honest”.

She said: “The Labour Party right now is not offering an alternative to Tory austerity, I stood on a platform last week in the UK leaders debate with Ed Miliband and I heard Miliband say if Labour is elected and left to their own devices there will be further spending reductions.

“I don’t want to see further spending reductions, I don’t think the country can afford them. That’s why we’re proposing modest spending increases and with SNP influence we can force Labour down that path.”

Leaders sit together ahead of the STV debate tonight.
Leaders sit together ahead of the STV debate tonight. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Updated

According to Twitter, I’ve missed the story.

That’s a reference to this.

Here’s Kezia Dugdale, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, praising her boss.

Q: Why do you support weapons of mass destruction?

Murphy says he wants a world free of weapons of mass destruction.

Jim Murphy says he wants a world free of WMDs.
Jim Murphy says he wants a world free of WMDs. Photograph: STV

But, in a world where Iran is trying to get nuclear weapons, it does not make sense to disarm unilaterally.

Q: Does it worry you they are only 50 miles from Glasgow?

Yes, says Murphy. But it would worry him if they were 50 miles from a city in the north of England too.

He says a Trident submarine is on patrol all the time. We should thank the servicemen involved, he says.

Q: Where would you deploy the 10,000 people involved?

Murphy says he is not planning to get rid of those jobs.

Updated

Q: Will you end the freeze on public sector pay?

Murphy says he cannot guarantee to raise all public sector wages above inflation.

But he can promise to end austerity. Labour would help people by cutting their fuel bills. And it would build more homes for people.

If Labour has not delivered after a year, you can throw me out of power, he says.

Jim Murphy
Jim Murphy Photograph: Graeme Hunter/AFP/Getty Images

Murphy says Labour would tax the rich more. He has a message for anyone earning more than £150,000 a year. “First, well done.” But he would also say, you have to pay a bit more, he says.

He says Labour would use this money to fund better public services.

But it would not put the council tax up in Scotland.

Updated

Jim Murphy questioned

Jim Murphy is now taking questions.

He starts with an opening statement. He says this is the most important election for a generation. Scotland needs a Labour goverment. Labour would abolish exploitative zero-hours contracts, increase the minimum wage and stop children having to rely on food banks.

Cameron has a new divide and rule plan, he says. He wants to stay in power by dividing his opponents.

Ruth Davidson questioned

Ruth Davidson is now taking questions.

Ruth Davidson
Ruth Davidson Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA

Q: The Conservatives have not ruled out a deal with Ukip. Can you rule one out?

Davidson says there will be no deal. Ukip will not have enough MPs to make a deal work.

The reason why a Labour/SNP deal is an issue is because the SNP may get many more seats.

Q: But Cameron will stop at nothing to stay in Number 10.

Davidson says the polls are also showing the Ukip are likely to get about two seats. You would not put a party with only two seats in coalition.

Updated

Opening round - Snap verdict

Opening round - Snap verdict: All four leaders have been creditable, but at heart this is a tussle between Jim Murphy and Nicola Sturgeon and, so far, they been locked in a bloodless stalemate. Murphy’s opening statement was more emotive than anyone else’s, but mildly spoiled by its irrelevance to the question he was asked. The debate really came alive when he and Sturgeon argued about the SNP and Labour working together. Sturgeon’s electoral realism is more persuasive then Murphy’s all-or-nothing refusal to contemplate Labour not getting a majority, and his claim that any SNP win helps Cameron become prime minister is implausible. Sturgeon also scored a good point when she threw his own 2010 words about Gordon Brown having the right to form a government back in his face. But her claim that Labour would rather see Cameron in power than work with the SNP is also fanciful. Wilfully or not, she is confusing rigid message discipline with Tory bias.

A view of the Scottish Television Debate at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh
A view of the Scottish Television Debate at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Updated

Sunder Katwala from British Future has a point.

Murphy says the Murphys did not always come from Glasgow. When his family first came to Scotland, they did not always get a warm welcome. But immigration is good for Scotland, he says.

Murphy says he does not go into a contest thinking he is going to lose. Even when his football team are playing Barcelona.

He says any seat the SNP win increases the chances of David Cameron becoming prime minister.

“Nonsense”, Sturgeon says.

Murphy repeats the point about 1924 and says you cannot risk the welfare of Scotland on something that happened 90 years ago.

Sturgeon says Murphy seems to be saying he would rather see the Tories in power than work with the SNP.

Willie Rennie says the Lib Dems do not want to work in government with a party that wants to break up the UK.

Ruth Davidson says she wants a Conservative majority. If that does not happen, she would like to see the Tories run a minority government.

Q: People who are watching might agree with Sturgeon and Murphy. They might want Labour and the SNP to work together. What is wrong with that?

Sturgeon says, if there is an anti-Tory majority in Westminster after the election, the SNP will work with Labour to keep the Tories out. But Labour are not offering an alternative to the Conservatives. Ed Miliband said in the debate last week that that there would have to be further cuts. She does not agree.

Murphy asks if Sturgeon wants Miliband to be prime minister.

Sturgeon says she does not want David Cameron to be prime minister.

Murphy asks the question again.

Sturgeon says she thinks she has made her answer clear.

Murphy says it is the largest part that forms the government. The largest party has not formed a government since 1924.

Sturgeon says the last time she saw a party that was not the largest try to form a government was in 2010, when one Jim Murphy said Gordon Brown had the moral right to try to form a government. She says Labour need the SNP to help them form a government.

Alastair Campbell is heckling Bernard Ponsonby on Twitter.

Q: [To Rennie] Can you say everything the government has done has been fair?

Absolutely, says Willie Rennie. Look at the increase in the tax threshold.

Updated

Q: [To Davidson] Aren’t you just the same old type of Conservative?

Ruth Davidson says she does not understand why Sturgeon is saying Labour are rubbish, but people should vote for her to get them in power.

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson puts her case
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson puts her case Photograph: STV

And she says she does not understand why Murphy wants to change things, when the economy is getting better.

Updated

Q: [To Sturgeon] You say your MPs will drive forward an agenda on issues like the living wage. Why should the Scots vote for SNP MPs to do this, when Labour MPs could introduce these measures?

Because we need a strong block of SNP MPs to ensure this happens, Nicola Sturgeon says. Remember what happened with Tony Blair. If you want progressive change, send a strong group of SNP MPs to Westminster to ensure it happens.

STV debate
STV debate Photograph: STV

Updated

Q: [To Murphy] The polls must be giving you sleepless nights. Why has Labour support collapsed?

Jim Murphy raises the issues raised by Susanne. How do you ensure you help working people? A mum came to see him recently with two jobs. She was proud of her jobs and daughters. But she cried, because she could not afford shoes for her children. It was heartbreaking. And he did not have all the answers. But the living wage would help.

(Murphy hasn’t even tried to address the question.)

Updated

Ponsonby is starting with contributions from members of the audience, who back the four parties represented.

Ponsonby says the debate will take place in four sections: an opening four-way debate, two sections in the middle with individual questioning, and a final four-way debate.

STV leaders' debate

Bernard Ponsonby is presenting the debate.

It is starting now.

And, luckily, the STV Player seems to be working.

Here are some tweets from before the programme starts.

I’m back, and I will be covering the STV Scottish leaders’ debates, with Jim Murphy, the Scottish Labour leader, Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, Willie Rennie, the Scottish Lib Dem leader, and of course Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, or, if you read the Daily Mail, “the most dangerous woman in Britain”.

Scottish leaders’ debates don’t normally attract huge interest south of the border, but Scotland it easily the most exciting battleground of this election, with repeated opinion polls suggesting SNP support is now so strong that Scottish Labour is at risk of near wipeout in a country it used to command. It’s Murphy’s job to try to stop that, and the repercussions will almost certain affect who forms a government at Westminster.

The STV debate is not on terrestrial TV in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. But STV promise that we will be able to watch it through their iPlayer. There are more details here.

That’s it from me today. I’m passing the blog back to my colleague Andrew Sparrow now.

Despite the Tories’ dismissals, top UK business leaders have backed Tony Blair’s warning over a possible EU exit. Business for New Europe (BNE), a business group backed by the bosses of some of Britain’s biggest companies, said a vote to quit the EU could force some companies that use Britain as a European base to leave the UK. The group warned that businesses will hold back on investment in Britain because of the uncertainty created by the prospect of the referendum.

Business leaders on BNE’s advisory council include Sir Michael Rake, the chairman of BT, Chris Gibson-Smith, the chairman of the London Stock Exchange, and Sir Philip Hampton, the chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland. BNE is non-partisan and campaigns for Britain to stay in a less bureaucratic EU. Sir Nigel Sheinwald, a non-executive director of Royal Dutch Shell who sits on the advisory council, said:

BT chairman, Sir Michael Rake, and other business leaders agree with Tony Blair
BT chairman, Sir Michael Rake, and other business leaders agree with Tony Blair Photograph: Micha Theiner/City AM/ Rex Feat

I agree with the sentiment [of Blair’s speech]. The first issue is uncertainty between the election, if the Conservatives win, and the referendum. In that period, companies thinking of major investment in the UK which depend on Britain’s membership of the EU will delay or go somewhere else. [If there is a vote to leave], there would be a period of renegotiation in which everything would be uncertain for years until we got a new status. Britain’s exit from the European Union would be a huge business and political risk and I think a lot of companies realise that.

Updated

Comedian Frankie Boyle has written a piece for us about the SNPs retirement policies, as well as the party’s place among the establishment. I’ve included the first couple of paragraphs below.

They say that the older you get, the more conservative you become: perhaps that’s the reason there are no Tories in Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon has announced that she will freeze the retirement age at 65 as raising it would be unfair on Scottish people, who die younger. Iraq has a higher life expectancy than certain parts of Glasgow, and probably a better standard of football. I often wonder if the real reason the royals holiday in Balmoral is so they can use Scottish staff to teach their children about mortality, in the same way that you or I would let them have a hamster. “I’m afraid Old Jock’s dead son, but he was 35 … in Scottish years that’s two World Cup qualifications …”

Scottish Widows advert
Scottish Widows advert Photograph: The Advertising Archives

The SNP are far from radical, but they do have a knack for producing the odd simple, progressive policy that’s hard to argue against. It has to be a vote-winner among Scottish people to announce that you will oppose the retirement age being raised to several years after they die. It must have been a strange journey for Sturgeon to have gone from relative obscurity in the substantial shadow of Alex Salmond to having the entire nation watch her exchange soundbites with a Labour leader who looks like a dream about a nose that has teeth. It feels almost as if the establishment is still assessing her. Which of the traditional tactics to employ: scorn or vilification? Do you call her the most dangerous woman in Britain or stage a smear where she’s a gossipy woman? Decisions, decisions.

Updated

Come on, we can do better than this.

Michael Gove has dismissed Tony Blair’s concerns over the European Union. Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s PM earlier, Gove said:

I think that Tony Blair was reliving some of his own psychodrama. The truth is that he was in favour of a referendum before he was against it.

He’s occupied different positions on the European question and he looks back on his time in power and he regrets the fact, I’m glad I have to say, that we did not integrate even further into the European Union.

Tony Blair, I think, has limited credibility on this issue because he was one of those who argued passionately for our entry into the single currency and I don’t think there’s any respectable politician now who would want to waste their breath arguing that we should enter the euro.

Quotes taken from PA.

One for football fans - after all, rumours have emerged that George Osborne is next in line for Jose Mourinho’s job.

We now have a report up about the 100 top doctors who have attacked the government’s record on the NHS in a letter to the Guardian. As Guardian health editor Sarah Boseley writes:

Leading doctors in the NHS have accused the coalition government of a catalogue of broken promises, funding cuts and destructive legislation which has left the health service weaker than ever before in its history.

In a letter to the Guardian, more than 100 senior doctors pass a damning judgement of the government’s stewardship of the NHS, which they say is under pressure because of unnecessary market-oriented reforms.

“As medical and public health professionals our primary concern is for all patients. We invite voters to consider carefully how the NHS has fared over the last five years, and to use their vote to ensure that the NHS in England is reinstated,” they write.

The signatories to the letter include Dr Clare Gerada, former chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners; Prof John Ashton, retired director of public health; epidemiologist professor Michel Coleman; Simon Capewell, professor of public health in Liverpool; Trisha Greenhalgh, professor of primary care at Oxford; Martin McKee, professor of European public health, and Raymond Tallis, emeritus professor of geriatric medicine in Manchester.

Updated

Interesting findings from a new Jewish Chronicle poll...

My colleague Steven Morris has just sent me this report from Cameron’s Cornwall rally:

David Cameron has flagged up how important the battle for votes in the far south west of England is for the Tories if the party is to win a majority.

During a rally in Cornwall, the prime minister identified three seats currently held by the Lib Dems in the county that he believes are up for grabs - St Ives, St Austell and Newquay, and North Cornwall.

Cameron told a gathering of around 250 grassroots members, local councillors and candidates: “You are political fighters”, urged them to promote the record of the Tory-led government on the doorstep - and promised to to return to the west country during the campaign.

The south west of England has long been a key Lib Dem stronghold but the Tories believe that the party leader Nick Clegg’s unpopularity means they may be able to win a slew of seats across the region.

Cornwall was the fourth leg of Cameron’s one-day round-Britain tour. His battle-bus was driven into a giant agricultural shed at the Royal Cornwall Showground, near Wadebridge.

Cameron alighted with his wife, Samantha. He joked that she wanted to visit Cornwall because she liked the BBC drama series Poldark - and he was keen to finish his whistle-stop trip with fish and chips and a pint of the local beer, Doom Bar. He knows the area well because he often takes family holidays nearby.

Tie-less and with shirt sleeves rolled up, Cameron said: “We’ve got 30 days to go….This election is about what sort of United Kingdom we want.”

He said he had been too busy to watch Tony Blair speak earlier but told the audience the former prime minister had said the British people should not be trusted to make a decision about Europe. “I totally disagree. We should trust the British people,” Cameron said.

The prime minister told party workers to talk to voters about the government’s reforms on schools, benefits and pensions - and about its record on the NHS. He said they should ask voters: “Who do you want to be in charge at a time of great danger?” Did they want the shadow chancellor Ed Balls, the shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper and the Labour leader Ed Miliband to govern?

The prime minister urged people to discuss the Tory team that had been in government. “This is a leadership team that has delivered for Britain,” he said.

David Cameron in full flow with the support of his wife Samantha at the Royal Cornwall Showground
David Cameron in full flow with the support of his wife Samantha at the Royal Cornwall Showground Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Updated

BBC Newsbeat have started a hashtag to encourage young people to vote, ahead of a debating event in Leeds. It’s worth noting that most of them don’t think immigration is an issue, they’re more concerned about housing. I’ve picked out a small collection below.

Turns out Cameron’s rally in Cornwall isn’t as grand as pictures originally suggested.

ITV’s James Mates writes that Cameron has his sights set on his own Game of Thrones-style empire:

You may not all be Game of Thrones fans, but Big Blue [Cameron] certainly is. Mrs Blue [Samantha Cameron] isn’t. Somehow, while serving as Prime Minister, he has managed to watch all four series without her. That, in itself, is some tribute to household management within Number 10.

So when he lovingly caressed King Joffrey’s crossbow and reminisced almost fondly at the cruelties it had inflicted, she looked a little bemused. Maybe even concerned.

“Look, darling, this is the sword of Rianne of Tarn [Brienne of Tarth], the seven foot warrior woman I was telling you about”.

“Oh yes, darling”. Pause. “That’s nice”.

Updated

Nick Clegg has also said he’s not surprised by George Osborne’s failure to rule out cuts to child benefit. Speaking in Newtown, Mid Wales, the Lib Dem leader said:

It’s no surprise to me that the Conservatives are considering pretty dramatic changes like taking child benefit away from lots of families because they have committed to taking 12 billion away from some of the most vulnerable families in this country.

They have committed to taking the equivalent of 1,500 away from eight million of the poorest families in this country to balance the books; they are not asking the very wealthy, those with the broadest shoulders, to make a single contribution through the tax system in balancing the books.

Even if they did what is now being floated by George Osborne, they would still have 8 billion or 9 billion to fund. Who are they going to affect next, those with disabilities?

Which other vulnerable groups will be affected by this unfair plan from the Conservatives?

Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg waters some plants.
Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg waters some plants. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

Asked whether the Lib Dems would rule out the move, Clegg said:

Child benefit rolled into the Universal Credit will not be in our manifesto because we are not planning the very, very extensive reductions in support given to the most vulnerable in our society that the Conservatives are.

There’s no way the Liberal Democrats would ever endorse, of course not, in government or in opposition an approach which takes 1,500 away from eight million of the most vulnerable families in Britain.

Quotes taken from PA.

Updated

The Guardian’s Frances Perraudin has written a report about Clegg comparing Michael Gove’s policies to an episode of The Thick Of It, as we mentioned earlier. She adds:

Clegg said that, although he was a big supporter of the government’s free schools policy, there had been a “near departmental obsession” under Michael Gove with opening a small number of new schools, “some of which were being opened in areas where there wasn’t a particular pressure on school places, when the much larger issue of how you properly finance 24,000 schools across the whole school system was much more pressing”.

He added: “What you can’t do – which is what the Conservatives have come up with – is pantomime horse policy, where they say on the one hand we’ll give more money to a tiny number of hand-picked schools, hand-picked by theConservatives, [while] on the other hand they will cut over £3 billion out of the education budget.”

He said that the free schools policy would not have been passed if it weren’t for his party, but there were “a tiny, tiny number of cases” where state schools were crying out for extra investment and the money went instead to open new free schools, even though there was no pressure on places. “That just seems to me to be an irrational use of scarce resources, in effect, for ideological reasons,” said Clegg.

My colleague Steven Morris is with Cameron in Cornwall. Here’s some of the things he’s been talking about.

The cost of treating British people who become ill while travelling in Europe is five times higher than the cost of treating ill visitors from other European countries in the UK, official figures show. As our data team report:

The Department of Health data, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, shows that it cost £30m in 2013-14 to meet the costs of European visitors using the National Health Service. This is less than one-fifth of the £155m cost to other states in the European single market for treating ill British tourists.

EEA healthcare costs.
Health Tourism Photograph: The Guardian

The figures for costs are for the medical treatment of European Economic Area tourists under the European health insurance card (Ehic) and cover visitors rather than residents or temporary migrants, but critics say they “puncture a big hole” in claims that health tourism is costing Britain dearly.

The detailed DoH figures show that Spain and France, the most popular European holiday destinations for British tourists, had the largest bills, nearly £40m each, for their medical treatment. French tourists cost the NHS almost £5m, while those from Spain incurred costs of only £3m under the Ehic scheme.

Updated

The Conservatives have accused Labour of orchestrating a letter by doctors warning of the threat to the NHS if the Tories are re-elected. According to The Daily Telegraph, the letter - organised by Dr Clare Gerada, the former chairman of the Royal College of GPs - says “flat-line funding” and “chaotic reorganisation” have “crippled the NHS”, and claims that the Tories will reduce it to a “poor service for poor people”.

Dr Clare Gerada.
Dr Clare Gerada. Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian

The Tories, who have obtained a copy of the letter, say it is “another desperate attempt to weaponise the NHS”. But Gerada, who is a member of the Labour party, said the letter was a draft version, and was intended to “counter” a recent letter by more than 100 business leaders to The Telegraph backing Conservative economic policy. She added:

It has not been orchestrated by Labour, it has been put together by me and a few other medical leaders.

I’m not doing this from a party political point of view. My views on the health service and the health and social care act go back and are well-known. This letter was drafted by me and some others.

I am a Labour party member now, but I’m not an activist in the Labour party.This is a view of many doctors who have serious concerns about the state of the NHS as it is now.

A Labour spokesman said:

It says everything about the Tories that they are complaining about being held to account by NHS professionals rather than apologising for their failing plan which is letting down patients.

Updated

David Cameron has just arrived at a rally in Cornwall – his final pitstop of the day. I’ll be posting the main points of his speech.

Updated

In the runup to tonight’s Scottish leaders debate, the SNP is being attacked by its main opponents in Scotland. The Lib Dems accused the SNP government in Scotland of not having its priorities straight on healthcare. Lib Dem health spokesman Jim Hume said:

It’s disappointing once again to see that whilst NHS staff are doing their utmost to deliver excellent patient care, the SNP Government doesn’t have its priorities straight.

NHS staff need more resources and only Liberal Democrats are committed to delivering an 800 million boost to the Scottish NHS.

With 2,754 patients facing waits of over eight hours, the SNP Government must set out what it is going to do to support Scotland’s health service.

Meanwhile, Labour candidate for Stirling, Johanna Boyd, criticised the SNP’s decision to vote against Labour’s plans to extend the living wage:

Johanna Boyd

Despite knowing that in-work poverty affects so many Scots, SNP MSPs chose to vote against Scottish Labour’s plan to extend the living wage and ban zero-hours contracts.

Adding:

That is the horrifying reality of Scotland under the Tories and the SNP. But it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Thousands of Scottish families are just an unexpected bill away from being in real trouble.

Warm words aren’t enough, we need a real plan to tackle poverty. Scottish Labour has a better plan for a fairer Scotland. We’ll increase the minimum wage, extend the living wage, ban exploitative zero-hours contracts, and we will establish a 175 million Scottish anti-poverty fund to support those who fall through the cracks.

Quotes taken from PA.

Updated

Theresa May was just on Sky News, where she defended the Tories’ record on health. “Don’t forget who it was that changed GPs contracts, that they were no longer required themselves to provide out-of-hours services. It was the Labour party in 2004,” she said.

Watch her appearance here.

Theresa May defends her party’s record on health.
Theresa May defends her party’s record on health. Photograph: Sky News

Updated

The Green party has cancelled its billboard launch again. A note from the party’s press office said the billboard, which was due to be revealed yesterday, and then again tomorrow, is now likely to be launched early next week.

A spokesperson for the party just told me the issue is that the contractors who put up the posters just haven’t done it in time, and that due to diary commitments, next week is the earliest Natalie Bennett and Caroline Lucas can both be there. “It’s frustrating, but they’re just guys who put up posters. There’s not a lot we can do to make them do it faster.”

Bad luck.

Updated

Scottish Labour has accused David Cameron of hypocrisy for defending an unofficial pact between the Tories and Alex Salmond. Our Scotland correspondent, Severin Carrell, has just sent me a report.

I’ve included some key points below:

  • David Cameron is accused of hypocrisy after defending an unofficial pact between the Scottish Tories and Alex Salmond, despite repeatedly accusing Labour of plotting a “coalition nightmare” with the SNP at Westminster.
Annabel Goldie MSP, leader of the Scottish Conservative party.
Annabel Goldie MSP, leader of the Scottish Conservative party. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian
  • Scottish Labour said the prime minister was insulting Scottish voters after Cameron said it was “right at the time” for the then Scottish Tory leader Annabel Goldie to prop up Salmond’s first minority government by repeatedly voting through his budgets and legislation.
  • Data passed to the Guardian shows the Scottish Tories helped the Scottish National party outvote Labour in 40% of all the votes during Salmond’s first term as first minister, from 2007 to 2011, when the SNP had a single-seat majority over Labour.
  • New Scottish parliament information office figures show the Tories helped the SNP defeat Labour 377 times in four years.
  • Goldie and her 16 Tory MSPs won policy deals on drug rehabilitation, town centre regeneration funding and small business support in return. That political stability helped Salmond win a landslide victory in 2011, setting up Holyrood’s first outright majority government and paving the way for the independence referendum.
  • With the SNP poised to win a majority of Scotland’s 59 Commons seats and play an influential role at Westminster, the Conservatives have released a series of attack ads berating the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, for failing to explicitly rule out any sort of post-election deal with the SNP.
  • The ads have featured a miniaturised Miliband in Salmond’s jacket pocket and in one animated film, the Labour leader dancing to a Scottish jig played by Salmond on a recorder. Meanwhile, Salmond and his successor Nicola Sturgeon now repeatedly attack Cameron, urging Labour to help them “lock the Tories out of power” at Westminster.
  • An SNP spokesman said Holyrood and Westminster could not be compared, because in UK election contests, Scottish voters “consistently and decisively reject the Tories at election after election”.

Updated

From watching paint dry, to rolling scotch eggs and sipping tea with war veterans – here are some photos from the various campaign trails today:

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg paints a wall at NK Theatre Arts in Hazel Grove, Stockport.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg paints a wall at NK Theatre Arts in Hazel Grove, Stockport. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA
Hannah Bardell, left, with Nicola Sturgeon.
Hannah Bardell, left, with Nicola Sturgeon. Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Ed Miliband speaks at the National Composites Centre during a workplace question and answer session in Emersons Green, Bristol.
Ed Miliband speaks at the National Composites Centre during a workplace question and answer session in Emersons Green, Bristol. Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA
Labour supporters gather at the National Composites Centre, Emersons Green, Bristol as they wait for Ed Miliband.
Labour supporters gather at the National Composites Centre, Emersons Green, Bristol as they wait for Ed Miliband. Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA
Ukip leader Nigel Farage has a cup of tea with World War II veteran William Curtis after giving a speech on defence.
Nigel Farage has a cup of tea with second world war veteran William Curtis after giving a speech on defence. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA
David Cameron has a sip of stout by his wife Samantha during a visit to Brains Brewery in Cardiff, Wales on April 7, 2015.
David Cameron has a sip of stout by his wife Samantha during a visit to Brains Brewery in Cardiff, Wales. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AFP/Getty Images
George Osborne holds a cake declaring ‘Vote Conservative May 7’ with cafe staff in Stourbridge, United Kingdom.
George Osborne holds a cake declaring ‘Vote Conservative May 7’ with cafe staff in Stourbridge, West Midlands. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Updated

Moving on from his takedown of Andy Burnham, Nick Clegg has launched an attack on Michael Gove’s time as education secretary, which he has compared to an episode of The Thick Of It.

I remember when I thought “This is just getting absurd” was when someone explained to me that Michael Gove was personally handwriting lists of which medieval kings British schoolchildren should learn, according to his personal recollection of which kings and queens are important.

Adding:

I just thought “This is something out of The Thick Of It”. You have the secretary of state personally instructing the hapless children of this country which medieval kings you want them to learn by rote.

I’m afraid this happens in government, I’ve seen this, where a secretary of state, it all slightly goes to their head, they think it’s their personal fiefdom or their personal gift.

I’ve taken the quotes from PA.

Updated

My colleague Marina Hynde has written about Tony Blair’s political wisdom. She notes that despite people’s misgivings about him, the former prime minister “wears the air of a man who is never going to inch through an airport in his socks”.

The former Prime Minister and MP for Sedgefield gives a speech to waiting party members.
The former Prime Minister and MP for Sedgefield gives a speech to waiting party members. Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

Unfortunately, there are rather too many people who will feel the message – any message, in fact – is compromised by the choice of messenger. The good news for Blair was that none of them appeared to be in the house on Tuesday.

In fact, there is a strong sense at events like these that the audience is not merely heavily screened, but has been kept in a special facility since mid-2001 with no access to the news. Certainly, like so many political happenings this campaign, the gig took place in the sanitised, secured space of an out-of-town business park. There was a greater probability of Blair being joined on stage by Michael Jackson than there was of his being ambushed by the cries of “war criminal” that are the occasional lift music of his new life.

Tony Blair during a visit to construction site of the Hitachi factory in his former constituency.
Tony Blair during a visit to construction site of the Hitachi factory in his former constituency. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Updated

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt was on BBC Radio Four’s World at One show today to discuss A&E waiting times. Hunt defended his government’s record on health:

Our performance was 4% better than Scotland, run by the SNP, 8% better than Labour in Wales, and 20% better than the performance in Northern Ireland. It’s inappropriate to make this into a political issue when what you actually have is huge pressure on our A&E departments caused by a number of things – but the biggest single thing that they all say is the increasing pressure of an ageing population.

Hunt added that over the next five years he would like to see a transformation of the services offered outside hospitals, particularly in GP surgeries. He said that Labour imposed walk-in centres on NHS that didn’t fit into the broader services the NHS wanted and that the facts speak for themselves: 3,000 more people are being seen in A&E within the four-hour targets every day compared with five years ago. Listen to the full interview below.

Updated

The Electoral Commission has today published a spreadsheet with the count arrangements for the 2015 general election. It includes information from (acting) returning officers about when they plan to start their count to help meet the high level of interest there will be from voters, candidates and the media about when they can expect the result for their parliamentary constituency to be declared. Not all AROs have submitted their count arrangements, but the spreadsheet will be updated every week.

Updated

Labour’s Alan Johnson has written in the New Statesman that the Tories and Ukip are preparing to work together and imagines the results of this: an increased rate of public sector cuts, further privatisation of the NHS, as well as tax breaks for those at the top.

David Cameron, George Osborne and a host of Tory Cabinet Ministers have repeatedly been asked to rule out working with Ukip after the election, but have refused to do so.

And despite their denials, the terms of a deal have been set. Nigel Farage has said he wants an early in/out referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU in exchange for supporting the Tories, something David Cameron has said he would be “delighted” to offer.

There is also now a growing number of Conservative MPs calling for a deal with UKIP - alongside the two who have already crossed the floor - and even greater support amongst grassroots Conservatives, with reports that almost half of Conservative activists want David Cameron to forge some sort of alliance before the election.

Indeed, the desire for a deal is so strong that some Tories are reportedly already striking deals with Ukip up and down the country in key marginals.

Nick Clegg.

Nick Clegg has accused Labour of “bare-faced cheek” on the NHS and called the party’s health spokesman Andy Burnham a “carboard cut-out” politician:

I heard Andy Burnham on the radio this morning making a ridiculous claim that we, the Lib Dems, don’t have a plan to meet the funding gap for the NHS when we do.

He added:

He is a slightly carboard cut-out and rather silly Labour politician who seems to think that if you have Labour politicians in the Department of Health the sun will shine perpetually and all will be well.

Yet this is the man who was part of a government that gave a quarter of a billion pounds’ worth of sweetheart deals to the private sector which didn’t deliver a single operation for the NHS, aren’t committed to giving the money the NHS needs in the next parliament and he himself was the health secretary who was in charge when the shortlist was drawn up to privatise the only NHS hospital which has ever been put into private hands.

Quotes have been taken from the Press Association.

Updated

The Lib Dems are attacking Tony Blair and Labour’s legacy. This has been the general consensus among anti-Blairites across social media today.

David Cameron is currently being taught how to make pies and scotch eggs at the Brains brewery in Cardiff. What happened to his diet?

More from Farage in Dudley:

And a unique way of raising campaign funds...

Updated

Here’s the Guardian video of Cameron on the Game of Thrones set.

This graph is interesting and perhaps demonstrates why the main parties’ “come back home” rhetoric is unlikely to work.

Meanwhile, on the SNP campaign trail...

The Conservatives have posted a video of David Cameron’s visit to the Game of Thrones set in Northern Ireland earlier today. “As a government, we’re going to go on supporting the film and television industry, that means we make sure we keep the tax credits and keep our country a great place to invest in, so more fabulous television is made - just like the set I’m very excited to be on right now, as a big Throney”, Cameron says, while standing in front of a green screen and a block of fake snow.

Updated

Farage pledge to spend extra £16bn on defence

In his speech, Farage set out how Ukip would spend an extra £16bn on defence during the course of the next parliament, in order to meet the NATO requirement of 2% defence spend per year.

He also said Ukip would create a Veterans’ Administration with a dedicated Minister for Veterans, as well as a National Service Medal for all those who have served.

He added that the party would ensure service men and women who leave the armed forces would have priority access to mental health care on the NHS, as well as social housing, and jobs in the police, prisons or the border force if they want it.

Nigel Farage today pledged £16bn extra into the defence budget over the next parliament.
Nigel Farage today pledged £16bn extra into the defence budget over the next parliament. Photograph: BBC

A statement I’ve just received from the party reads:

From today, it should be clear: Ukip is the party of defence. We are the only party to have committed to spending 2 per cent of Britain’s GDP on defence. We think it is of far greater importance to this country than the commitment to overseas aid as we believe the first duty of government is defence.

UKIP defence poster.
UKIP defence poster. Photograph: UKIP

Updated

Hi all, Nadia here. I’m taking over from Andrew Sparrow for a few hours.

Nigel Farage has just given a speech in Dudley about Ukip’s defence policy. Stay tuned, I’ll be posting a summary of Farage’s main points.

It seems the Daily Record may have overdone its story about the SNP “defector” to Labour, Muhammad Shoaib. (See 8.49am.) According to CommonSpace, which says it has spoken to him, Shoaib says he is still a member of the SNP, although he admits he does want a Labour government at Westminster working with the SNP.

I’m handing over to Nadia Khomami now. I will be back at around 7.30pm to cover tonight’s STV leaders’ debate, featuring a key showdown between Jim Murphy, the Scottish Labour leader, and Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader and Scottish first minster. Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, and Willie Rennie, the Scottish Lib Dem leader, are also participating in the debate, which will run from 8pm until 10pm.

Updated

Angus Robertson, the SNP’s election campaign, said Tony Blair’s intervention would harm Labour in Scotland.

Labour candidates across Scotland will be horrified at Tony Blair’s intervention - his appearance simply reminds people of his toxic legacy of the illegal invasion of Iraq, starting the process of health privatisation with foundation hospitals, and breaking his promises by imposing tuition fees and top up fees.

Mr Blair is the very last person who could succeed in stemming the flow of former Labour supporters to the SNP - indeed, he is likely to have exactly the opposite effect.

For him to try and claim that Norway is some kind of economic basket case is ludicrous - this is exactly the same ‘too wee, too poor’ rhetoric that Labour used while they campaigned with the Tories in the referendum, and which has caused so many people in Scotland to turn their backs on Labour.

Tony Blair has also responded to David Cameron’s criticism of his speech. (See 12.51pm.) Blair said:

I think he has missed the point as I would ask him why does he want to put at risk Britain’s membership of Europe at this moment. It’s my view that it’s extraordinary that he should want such a referendum unless he believes it’s right for Britain to go.

Priti Patel, the Conservative Treasury minister, told BBC News earlier that rolling child benefit into universal credit (see 1.52pm) was not Conservative policy. But she was less forthcoming when asked if the party would restrict child benefit to just two children. She replied:

I’m not going to come here and start talking the ins and outs of the spending review because that will all be for the next government.

Speaking to reporters in Sedgefield, Tony Blair said he would accepted the post of president of the European Council if it had been offered to him when it was first established in 2009. “But it’s not on the agenda now,” he added.

David Cameron is now onto his third nation of the day; he’s in Cardiff in Wales.

My colleague Steven Morris was at the Ed Miliband event in Bristol. As reported earlier (see 1.15pm), much of the press interest was in why Miliband was not appearing with Tony Blair. As Steven says, Miliband sidestepped a question about whether this was because Blair did not want to appear with him, or the other way round. But Steven says other topics came up too.

During his opening remarks as he addressed workers at the Bristol and Bath science park, Miliband said he wanted to focus on three areas – Europe, young people and the NHS.

He said it was “incredibly important” that Britain remained within the UK, echoing Blair’s remarks as the former prime minister hit the campaign train in his old constituency of Sedgefield in County Durham.

Miliband said his tour of a high-tech company – coincidentally based in the same science park that David Cameron visited on Monday – was a reminder of how important it was to “build a proper future for our young people.” “It is in our interests and their interests and in business interests too,” he said.

He said a Labour government would work to make sure there were more skilled engineers, for instance by creating more high quality apprenticeships and reducing the cost of tuition fees.

On the NHS he criticised the Tory government over A&E waiting lists, claiming the latest figures were the worst since the four hour target was introduced.

He also spoke strongly about the problems some people have in seeing a GP when they want to. “The NHS cannot go forward if queues to see the GP are stretching backwards,” he said.

Real voters respond to the day's campaign issues

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 as they crop up.

On Tony Blair’s intervention for Labour …

On incessant talk of how the leaders eat food …

On tonight’s debate between Scottish party leaders …

Updated

Lunchtime summary

  • Tony Blair has denounced “Euro fantastists” in a hard-hitting speech attacking Conservative plans to hold a referendum on EU membership. In a rare intervention in UK politics, and one of the most substantial speeches so far by any participant in the election campaign, Blair praised Ed Miliband for refusing to match Tory plans for a referendum and he said the very prospect of withdrawal from the EU would create “significant business uncertainty”. If Britain did vote to leave, negotiating exit would be “horrible”, and much harder than people expected, he said.

There is, in my view, also a complete under-estimation of the short term pain of negotiating exit. There would be a raft of different Treaties, association agreements and partnerships to be dis-entangled and re-negotiated. There would be significant business uncertainty in the run-up to a vote but should the vote go the way of exit, then there would be the most intense period of business anxiety, reconsideration of options and instability since the war.

Ed Miliband arrives at the National Composites Centre, in Emersons Green, Bristol.
Ed Miliband arrives at the National Composites Centre, in Emersons Green, Bristol. Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA
  • Ed Miliband has said that today’s A&E waiting time figures for England, which are the worst for a decade (see 10.19am), are partly explained by the government’s failure to improve access to GPs. Speaking in Bristol this morning he said:

We’ve just seen figures today published for waiting times in England’s A&E departments which show that the first three months in this year was the worst period since the four-hour A&E target was introduced over a decade ago. And one of the reasons for that is it’s got a lot harder to see a GP – a lot harder to see a GP. Across England, there are some 600 fewer GP surgeries open in the evenings and at weekends than there were at the last general election; one in four people can’t get a GP appointment within a week.

George Osborne delivers a speech in London today.
George Osborne delivers a speech in London today. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters
  • George Osborne has refused to categorically rule out rolling child benefit into universal credit (UC) to help contribute towards Conservative plans to save £12bn from the welfare budget. As the Press Association reports, at a press conference Osborne asked repeatedly to rule it out and did not, but said that if the Tories had wanted to include child benefit in the new welfare system, they would have done so when it was created. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said that scrapping child benefit and increasing UC for eligible families could save 4.8 billion a year. But such a measure would mean that 4.3m families who receive child benefit at the moment but would not be entitled to UC in the future would lose more than £1,000 a year, the IFS said. At the press conference, Mr Osborne was asked to rule out rolling child benefit into UC. He replied:

If you judge us on our approach in this parliament and if we wanted to put child benefit into universal credit, we would have done it when we set up universal credit.

Nicola Sturgeon poses for pictures following her election campaign speech at the Forestbank community centre, Livingston.
Nicola Sturgeon poses for pictures following her election campaign speech at the Forestbank community centre, Livingston. Photograph: Russell Cheyne/Reuters
  • Nicola Sturgeon said that Miliband’s refusal to confirm that he would work with the SNP to block a Tory government suggests he would prefer to see David Cameron return to power than to collaborate with her party. She said:

Even if the Tories are the largest party, I have said we will vote to stop the Tory government getting off the ground. I have asked Ed Miliband to confirm that Labour will do likewise. Thus far, Labour hasn’t given that commitment. I hope to hear him give that commitment before too much more time elapses because as long as he fails to give that commitment he leaves lingering the suspicion that Labour would rather see the Tories get back into power than work with the SNP. If that is the case, then people in Scotland, I don’t think, will ever forgive the Labour Party.

  • Osborne has claimed Labour would run a “never-ending deficit”. At his press conference this morning he said:

The Labour party ... only talked about balancing the current, day to day, spending while continuing to borrow to pay for capital spending. What they don’t tell you is that means a permanent, never-ending budget deficit. Year after year, spending more than we raise. How much more? In 2018/19, we’ve said we’d spend £30bn a year on capital investment. So assuming Labour don’t want to spend less than us on capital investment, that means borrowing at least £30bn a year and rising. A 30 billion budget deficit forever into the future.

Updated

In Belfast David Cameron has sidestepped questions about whether the Conservatives would have to rely on the DUP after the election, my colleague Henry McDonald reports.

The prime minister dodged the issue of possibly needing the support of Democratic Unionist MPs to return to Downing Street after 7 May.

Speaking after his Game of Thrones tour in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter David Cameron said:

“I’m not aiming for a hung parliament – I’m aiming for a Conservative majority government.

“There are 30 days to go before the election and I’m going to do everything I can to win that election.”

But he didn’t entirely rule out the possibility of needing other parties’ support after the votes are cast.

“If I fall short you can ask me the question after that but until then I’m going to be campaigning all out for an overall majority, “ the prime minister added.

At his event in Bristol Ed Miliband was asked why he was not sharing a platform with Tony Blair.

Farage admits Ukip has slipped in the polls since the autumn

My colleague Rowena Mason has been following Nigel Farage today. She says that Farage has admitted that Ukip has slipped back in support to where it was seven months ago and revealed that he did know about private polling that suggests he faces a tough fight to win South Thanet.

Farage was asked about figures indicating Ukip has lost a quarter of its support while he was touring a garage in Cannock.

Farage said: “Well, firstly their poll of polls is wrong. The poll of polls is 14.6 not 12.25 as the Sun said. Second we are exactly where we were last August, exactly where we were having won the elections, we were 14 and a bit per cent. We won the European elections, we found that level, we did have a rally in the autumn through the remarkable events, first of Clacton and then the Rochester byelection. Yes, we have slipped back a bit since then. There are 30 days to go and I think the issues that Ukip is campaigning on is back in play.”

Over the weekend, a poll conducted by ComRes and commissioned by Ukip donor Arron Banks was leaked to the Mail on Sunday showing Farage a point behind the Conservatives. This led to suggestions Farage had try to suppress the poll, although the party argued it was not their data to publish and that the weighting was skewed.

Asked whether he knew about the Banks poll, Farage said: “Aware? I was aware a poll had been conducted that showed us five points ahead on the raw data – I would like it to be more than that clearly. Worried about losing South Thanet? Well the raw data had us ahead but not as far ahead as a previous poll that was conducted six to eight weeks before that. There have been three polls conducted.”

Nigel Farage meets workers at Bird and Yates car repairs during campaigning in the Midlands today
Nigel Farage meets workers at Bird and Yates car repairs during campaigning in the Midlands today Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Updated

Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, says today’s A&E waiting time figures (see 10.19am) show that the Conservatives would not protect the NHS.

After five years of David Cameron, A&E waits are at their worst level for a decade and patients are finding it harder and harder to see a GP. There’s only one person to blame for the A&E crisis and that’s David Cameron. He has made it harder to get a GP appointment, cut council social care budgets and wasted 3 billion on a reorganisation that nobody wanted and nobody voted for. If David Cameron gets back in, his extreme spending cuts mean he can’t protect the NHS and the crisis in A&E will get even worse.

Ed Miliband has been tweeting about the Blair speech too.

Cameron says Blair wrong on EU referendum

And, in his response to Tony Blair, David Cameron said Blair was wrong to think politicians could ignore the people.

I think Tony Blair is wrong. I want changes in Europe but then, unlike Tony Blair, I will trust the people in an in-out referendum.

We should ask people if they want to stay a member of this organisation. You cannot ignore the will of the people as Tony Blair thinks we should - and it is not just him, it is Ed Miliband.

And he made the same point on Twitter.

Updated

Ukip says Blair's policies were nastier than Ukip's

In his speech Tony Blair described Ukip’s politics as “ugly” and mean-spirited. (See 11am.) In response, Patrick O’Flynn, Ukip’s economics spokesman, said Blair was in no position to claim moral superiority.

What I do think is a shame today is to see Tony Blair sort of take a moral superiority stance and say that Ukip is somehow a nasty party because I think it’s a lot less nasty to believe that your country is good enough to govern itself than, for instance, to take your country into a war on a false prospective.

An SNP spokeswoman has responded to the defection of the indepedence campaigner Muhammad Shoaib. (See 8.49am.)

The SNP have gained 3,000 new members in the last few days. Given that former Labour councillor Muhammad Shoaib tried and failed to be selected as an SNP parliamentary candidate just a couple of months ago, this is a clear case of sour grapes.

Here’s another picture of Cameron in the Game of Thrones studios.

David Cameron during a visit to the Titanic Studios in Belfast, where he saw the film sets for the TV drama Game of Thrones and was given a guided tour by weapons master Tommy Dunn (right)
David Cameron during a visit to the Titanic Studios in Belfast, where he saw the film sets for the TV drama Game of Thrones and was given a guided tour by weapons master Tommy Dunn (right) Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Greens call for cut in VAT on house repairs

The Green party has today called for a cut in VAT on house repairs. This is from the Green’s news release.

Currently the VAT rate on repairs and renovations is 20% but, with the UK’s housing stock in desperate need of improvements such as insulation, a coalition led by the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) has been calling for a reduction to 5%, the lowest level allowed by European rules.

The latest independent economic research from Experian shows that a reduction in VAT on housing renovation and repair from 20% to 5% could create 42,000 extra full-time equivalent construction jobs from 2015 to 2020 and more still, an additional 53,000 jobs in the wider economy over the same five-year period. Additionally, a cut in the VAT rate would incentivise the ‘greening’ of homes through insulation and other measures. The total cost of the VAT cut would be £6.6bn over the five years from 2015 but would result in an economic stimulus of £15bn in the wider economy.

Ed Miliband is speaking at an event in Bristol. I’m monitoring it, and will post the highlights. At the moment he is talking about business catapult funding.

Ed Miliband
Ed Miliband Photograph: BBC News

I’ve only just seen an interview that Nick Clegg gave to the Economist last week. In it, he seemed to be saying that some people who voted Lib Dem in 2010 never wanted the party to be in power. He was responding to a question about why Lib Dem support has fallen so much.

There is clearly a section of the support we had in 2010 that was virulently anti-Conservative. They’re the ones who still scream and shout blue murder and have done so without pause for breath for half a decade. And they’re loud and they’re noisy and they’re angry. And that was a significant chunk of support that basically wanted to be associated with any party that didn’t have the remotest sniff of power. There just is a constituency out there that wants to be entirely bereft of any responsibility. So they’re clearly also very pissed off. And then, given quite how strong our standing was, particularly in large parts of the public sector, I think it is wholly predictable and totally unsurprising that a significant number of people who have found their pensions chopped and changed, you know, what they earn limited year-in year-out, and they’ve seen job reductions in the public sector because of the wider fiscal entrenchment over the last few years—they’re also at risk of being disenchanted. And then there’s what appears to be, which might be unjust and might be a bit cruel, but there you go, a bit of a rule of thumb for smaller parties in coalitions, not just here but elsewhere in Europe. It seems to be a bit of a pattern that smaller parties tend to get a disproportionate amount of the blame for the bad stuff and not their proportionate share of the credit for the good stuff. That’s happened to us just as much as it’s happened to everyone else.

So in my own view, those are probably more important explanations than tuition fees, or this decision or that decision, although those obviously play a part.

He also said that, in a future coalition, he would like the Lib Dems to take control of education.

I’d like to take the education department if I could. I feel we’ve wasted a lot of time with some rather fruitless and rather fruit-cakey policy spasms that don’t make any difference to the education system, which I would have liked to get my hands on more fully.

Updated

Labour has welcomed the findings of a poll commissioned by BBC Scotland on what policies voters in Scotland prefer. Increasing the minimum wage came top. This is from Ian Murray, Labour’s candidate in Edinburgh South.

This poll echoes what Scottish Labour activists up and down the country are hearing on the doorsteps: Scottish Labour has a better plan for a fairer Scotland. As the BBC poll shows, Labour’s plan to raise wages, introduce a mansion tax and cap energy bills are hugely popular.

Tony Blair has won plaudits this morning from two commentators more identified with the Brownite end of Labour politics.

Meanwhile David Cameron has arrived in Northern Ireland, where he is now visiting the Game of Thrones set.

Did SamCam eat her bacon butty?

It’s the issue that refuses to go away. Can these Westminster-types prove their everyman (or woman) credentials by successfully eating meat with their hands?

Following on from yesterday’s scandal in which David Cameron appeared to eat a hotdog with a knife and fork (though to be fair to him there was also salad on the plate) comes a fresh gastronomic conundrum for Twitter to get its teeth into.

Did SamCam eat her bacon sandwich?

Samantha Cameron chooses a bacon butty for breakfast in Edinburgh
Samantha Cameron chooses a bacon butty for breakfast in Edinburgh - but did she eat it?

Video has emerged (yes, we went to the trouble of uploading it for you) of the Camerons’ breakfast in Edinburgh this morning. While the prime minister went for haggis (when in Rome …), fried egg and toast, his wife plumped for the choice of hard-working families everywhere – the bacon butty; two rashers on what looked like an unbuttered soft roll.

Could she succeed, where her husband had failed so miserably, in picking up the roll like a pleb and putting hand to mouth? Or would she reach for the cutlery and slice up the sandwich like a debutante who has never been in a greasy spoon?

We may never know. Until footage emerges of a definitive chew, we are left to assume the roll was part of an elaborate ruse to fool the masses into thinking the Camerons are just like us.

Meanwhile, one of our commenters thinks Dave’s feeding of the lamb the other day may have been just to fatten it up for breakfast …

User avatar for SteveTen

Cameron eating Haggis reveals his true attitude to sheep.

Updated

Blair on Miliband - Summary and analysis

Blair speaks during a visit to the Hitachi factory in his former constituency in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham.
Blair speaks during a visit to the Hitachi factory in his former constituency in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Tony Blair’s speech was about Europe, and not wider issues, but the Q&A with journalists was mostly focused on Blair’s relationship with Ed Miliband. It is an open secret that Blair backed David Miliband for the Labour leadership, that he disagrees with Miliband on various issues (on business, and on foreign policy in particular) and that he thinks a Labour party that fights the election on a leftish platform will lose. But it would be embarrassing for the party if Blair could not find a way of saying something supportive during the campaign. Today Blair managed to back Miliband, and he was able to do so in a manner that went beyond the perfunctory, but without being insincere. That’s partly because he feels passionately about Europe, and Miliband’s decision to effectively rule out an in/out referendum is one he can enthusiastically support, as he did in his speech. It’s also because, in his Q&A, Blair spoke with a degree of passion about the values that bind members of a party like Labour together more than the policies. He did not pretend to be Miliband’s biggest fan, and he was notably more enthusiastic about Jim Murphy, the Blairite whom he described as the “great new leader of the Scottish Labour party”. But he sounded like he meant it when he said that Miliband was right to identify inequality as the great challenge of our time, even if his follow-up about Miliband having “excellent policies” in this area was perhaps less persuasive.

Here are the key points.

  • Blair said that Ed Miliband was “absolutely right” to make tackling inequality his key priority. This is what he said when asked if he shared Miliband’s critique of capitalism.

I agree completely with what he’s saying about the central challenge of inequality in our country today. I think he’s absolutely right to know that the times have changed, that this is a huge issue for people, and I think he’s got an excellent set of policies to deal with it.

In answer to a further question about Miliband, Blair insisted that, although people in the Labour party disagreed on policy matters, they were united by shared values.

One of the things that I experienced even when I first became Labour leader is that there has always been disagreement within the Labour party. Different people have different views about who we should approach things. But the important thing is what we share in common. And what we share in common is a deep and profound belief in social justice, in the belief that it is the purpose of a Labour government to bring opportunity to those people that don’t have it, and a belief also that it is right that our society, our country and its economy, are run in the interests of the many and not the few. And those are values that unite the Labour party, they are what keep us strong and what should see us on course for a general election victory on May 7.

  • He said that he supported Miliband “100%” and that he thought Labour would win the election. Blair said:

I’ve always had a view that Ed can win. And I’m sure and hope that he will.

Note that “sure and hope”. It does not convey great confidence; if he was really sure that Labour would win, he would not need to be hoping. Later, in answer to another question (and perhaps feeling that he had not been supportive enough), Blair was a bit more emphatic.

Just so that you understand this and get this fully; I support him 100% to lead our party.

At this point he was starting to sound more like someone just making a ritual profession of loyalty.

  • He declined to say whether he would share a platform with Miliband during the election. Pressed on this, Blair said:

I’m delighted to have been on many platforms with Ed over a long period of time.

I’m not sure this is strictly true. I certainly can’t recall seeing them on a platform together.

Updated

It was the BBC’s James Landale who asked the first question at the Blair Q&A.

Blair says he supports Miliband 100%.

There has always been disagreement in the Labour party, he says.

But what is important is what they have in common. They share a deep belief in social justice, and in having an economy run for the many, not the few. Those are the beliefs that should lead Labour to victory, he says.

And that’s it. The speech and Q&A are over.

I’ll post a full summary soon.

Cherie Blair (second left) applauds with others after her husband Tony’s speech.
Cherie Blair (second left) applauds with others after her husband Tony’s speech. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Q: Do you regret giving Scotland devolution in the light of what is happening to Labour?

Blair says devolution was the right thing to do. Labour has a challenge in Scotland, but it has a great new leader.

Q: When did you change your mind about Miliband? You used to say the party could not win if it fought an election from the left?

Blair says he has always thought Miliband can win. He hopes that he will?

Updated

Blair's Q&A

Tony Blair is now taking questions.

Q: You agree with Ed Miliband on Europe. Do you share his critique of the business world, and modern capitalism.

Blair says he agrees completely with Miliband on inequality being the central challenge of our time. Labour has an excellent set of policies to deal with this.

Q: Why are you not sharing a platform with Miliband?

Blair says Miliband is campaigning in Bristol on the NHS. “We are a party that can do more than one thing at once.”

Blair ends with a “vote Labour” message.

Labour and its Leader took a brave decision when they decided not to yield to pressure but instead to make the principled and intelligent case for Britain in Europe. In doing so, they showed that they understand Britain’s future and its destiny better than those prepared to trade policy for political advantage. That is one very good reason, amongst many others, for voting Labour on May 7th. I want Labour to win. I want us to win for the future of our country and its place in the world. I want Labour, under Ed’s leadership, to be the Government of our country on May 8th. I believe we can and will do it.

Blair is reaching his peroration.

A decision to exit Europe would say a lot about us and none of it good:

That an adventurous country has become a timid one

That one with global ambitions has opted to be a parochial bystander

That a country known for its openness to the world shuts the open door nearest to it

That a nation which has built its history on confidence towards others defines itself by resentment to others

That, with all the challenges of the world crowding in upon us, demanding strong and clear leadership, instead of saying ‘here’s where the world should go’, we say ‘count us out’.

Tony Blair gives a speech to waiting party members in his former Sedgefield constituency.
Tony Blair gives a speech to waiting party members in his former Sedgefield constituency. Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

And Blair attacked Ukip.

Reflect on the forces leading this campaign to get us out: UKIP, and the right of the Tory Party. Ask yourself this question: do they represent that spirit? Are they the standard bearers of an open-minded culturally tolerant Britain? Are creativity, innovation and curiosity about what we can learn from the world their hallmarks?

We know what this movement to wrench us out of Europe is based on. You can see it on display when Mr Farage swiftly moves the debate to immigrants.

National pride is a great thing. Nationalism as a political cause, in the hands of parties like UKIP, is almost always ugly and can never, despite being wrapped in the garb of high-sounding phrases, disguise its mean spirit.

Blair dismissed the argument that a referendum was a democratic necessity.

I am aghast at some of the arguments used as to why having such a vote is ‘a great idea for democracy’. Apparently we should have a referendum because its 40 years since we last had a vote. That is seriously an argument for doing something of this magnitude and risk? A sort of ‘keeping us on our toes’ thing? So should we do the same for NATO? Or have periodic referendums not just in Scotland but all over the UK just to check popular feeling? We should have a referendum if we seriously believe that getting out of Europe is a national priority if our terms aren’t met. If we don’t, then it is a completely unacceptable gamble with our future.

And, turning one of the Conservative party’s main election messages back on the party itself, he said a referendum would generate “chaos”.

The Tory campaign talks of chaos should Labour win. Think of the chaos produced by the possibility never mind the reality of Britain quitting Europe. Jobs that are secure suddenly insecure; investment decisions postponed or cancelled; a pall of unpredictability hanging over the British economy. And for what? To satisfy the insistent Euro-phobia of a group who will never be satisfied.

There is a beguiling notion that upon Britain voting to leave, the rest of Europe would be in an amenable and friendly frame of mind in the consequent negotiation. They would have, it is said, a shared interest, in making it as amicable as possible.

Excuse me, but get real. As a result of our decision every other European Leader would be faced with big choices about the terms of Britain’s relationship with Europe now as an outsider. This they would regard as a wholly unnecessary diversion from the critical domestic challenge of recovering their own economies. They will believe that Britain wants to have the benefits of the single market without the responsibilities. They will be determined to prevent that. Norway and Switzerland both are obliged, as the price of their access to Europe’s market, to accede to a series of European rules even though they cannot influence their drafting. The rest of Europe will be vigorous in ensuring Britain gets no special treatment. This will be a horrible process. Don’t be in any doubt about that.

Tony Blair speaks during a visit to the Hitachi factory in his former constituency in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham.
Tony Blair speaks during a visit to the Hitachi factory in his former constituency in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

Blair said an EU referendum would be a huge distraction.

It is a huge distraction for the country. But it will also be a huge distraction for the Prime Minister. It will take precedence over the NHS, education, law and order, the lot.

And the oddest thing of all about having this referendum? The Prime Minister doesn’t really believe we should leave Europe; not even the Europe as it is today. This was a concession to Party, a manoeuvre to access some of the UKIP vote, a sop to the rampant anti-Europe feeling of parts of the media.

This issue, touching as it does the country’s future is too important to be traded like this. It is greatly to Ed Miliband’s credit that he resolutely refused to make that trade. He faced down calls to follow the Tory concession from parts of the media and many inside our Party. In doing so, he showed real leadership. He showed that he would put the interests of the country first. He showed that on this, as on other issues, he is his own man, with his own convictions and determined to follow them even when they go against the tide. I respect that.

Back to Tony Blair, who started his speech saying that elections should be about big decisions.

Elections should never simply be about an exchange of rhetoric, the laying out of policy positions or the cacophony of the campaign. They should also be an investigation and a decision about our ambitions as a nation, who we are and where we’re going.

For me Europe is an important litmus test. I believe passionately that leaving Europe would leave Britain diminished in the world, do significant damage to our economy and, less obviously but just as important to our future, would go against the very qualities that mark us out still as a great global nation.

It would be a momentous decision.

Sturgeon says Miliband suggesting he would rather see Tories in power than work with SNP

Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader, has been giving a speech on child poverty this morning. According to the SNP, these are the measures the party would take after the election to tackle child poverty in Scotland and in the rest of the UK.

· Push for child tax credits and child benefit to be uprated instead of frozen as the Conservatives plan.

· Promote action that supports in-work families by calling for an increase in the minimum wage to £8.70 by the end of the next parliament.

· Support an increase in the work allowance – helping those in work benefit from their earnings.

· Deliver an end to austerity and oppose the renewal of nuclear weapons to help fund a further expansion of childcare.

· The SNP Government has already extended free childcare provision to 600 hours and has pledged that if re-elected at the next Holyrood election, childcare provision will be extended further still to 1,140 hours per year.

Here are some other lines from the event.

  • Sturgeon said Ed Miliband was creating the impression that he would rather see the Tories in power than work with the SNP.

Here’s the quote.

As long as [Miliband] fails to make that commitment [that he would work with the SNP] he leaves lingering the suspicion that he would rather see the Tories back in power than work with the SNP and, if that is the case, I don’t think the people of Scotland will ever, ever forgive him.

  • She said that, since last week’s leaders’ debate, many English voters had been expressing a desire to vote for the SNP.

Sturgeon is right about this. At one point on Friday last week the most read article on our politics website was this, Can I vote for the SNP if I live in England? By now it has had 185,000 hits.

  • She reaffirmed her opposition to Trident.

That last point is interesting. It helps to explain why, as David Torrance revealed in his Herald column yesterday, Sturgeon thinks Labour was better under Michael Foot than under Neil Kinnock.

Updated

Tony Blair is delivering his speech on Europe in Sedgefield now.

I’ll post a summary when I’ve read the full text.

Tony Blair speaking in Sedgefield
Tony Blair speaking in Sedgefield. Photograph: Sky News

Updated

This is what the Conservatives are saying about the A&E figures. (See 10.19am.) It is from a party spokesman.

A&E units across the UK faced unprecedented demand this winter, but English A&Es see 3,000 more patients a day within four hours than in 2009, and perform better than Scotland, Northern Ireland and Labour-run Wales, so it is completely wrong for Labour to try to turn this into a political football.

Thanks to a strong and growing economy we are investing £2 billion in the frontline next year to transform care in the community and take the pressure off hospitals.

Cameron defends Tory partnership with the SNP from 2007 to 2011

In Edinburgh David Cameron came under pressure to explain why he was saying it would be so awful for Labour to do a deal with the SNP at Westminster, when the Conservatives were quite happy to cooperate with the SNP in Edinburgh when Alex Salmond was running a minority administration. As Severin Carrell reports, Cameron claimed the situations were not comparable.

David Cameron has insisted it was justifiable for the Scottish Tories to form an unofficial alliance with Alex Salmond’s first minority government, despite repeatedly accusing Labour of plotting a “coalition nightmare” with the SNP.

Before a working breakfast of haggis, egg and toast with Scottish Widows executives in Edinburgh, Cameron said “it was right at the time” for the then Scottish Tory leader Annabel Goldie to strike a series of deals with Salmond’s Scottish National party government, including voting for every SNP budget, in return for policy concessions.

The prime minister and the Tories have stoked up fears of a Labour-SNP alliance at Westminster, publishing attack ads showing Ed Miliband in Alex Salmond’s top pocket, while repeatedly pressing Miliband to rule out any formal or informal deal with the SNP.

While failing to rule out an informal vote by vote deal with the SNP, Labour insists the Tories are guilty of great hypocrisy. Salmond relied consistently on the 17-strong Tory group to vote through every budget when he ran his first minority government from May 2007 with just one seat more than Labour.

A willing ally, Goldie won deals from Salmond on extra police officers, new drug rehabilitation programmes, extra cash for rundown town centres, zero business rates for small businesses and helped the Tories prove they supported devolution.

Cameron denied the two situations were comparable:

“I think it’s very different in the United Kingdom parliament to do a deal with the SNP. They want to break up the country the UK parliament is the sovereign body of.

“I think it’s very different. Annabel Goldie had a very clear rule: what she did in the Scottish parliament was right at the time and she had a red line that anything that threatened the integrity of the UK she wouldn’t take part in.

“As I say, this is different. This is the UK parliament and this would be forming an alliance with a party that simply has one aim and that is to break up the country the United Kingdom parliament is the sovereign body of.”

A Conservative election poster depicting Ed Miliband in the pocket ofAlex Salmond, displayed on the side of a building in the Bury North constituency
A Conservative election poster depicting Ed Miliband in the pocket ofAlex Salmond, displayed on the side of a building in the Bury North constituency Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

A&E waiting figures hit record low

The number of A&E patients in England being seen within the four-hour waiting target has hit its lowest level for a decade, according to new figures out today. Only 91.8% of patients were seen within four hours between January and March. The NHS is meant to reach a target of 95%, and the figure has never been as low as this since the 95% target was introduced at the end of 2004, according to the BBC.

Ukip supporters wait in vain for Nigel Farage at Sunnyhill Farm in Martson, central England.
Ukip supporters wait in vain for Nigel Farage at Sunnyhill Farm in Martson, central England. Photograph: Darren Staples/Reuters

And, while we’re on the subject of Nigel Farage, my colleague Rowena Mason has sent me this.

Nigel Farage was meant to be at an anti-HS2 event near Stafford at a farm that will have to be bulldozed due to the train line. But he’s not turning up due to “unavoidable travel delay”. The activists here say they think his plane couldn’t take off in the fog. Ukip doesn’t have a huge presence in Stafford but it could make the difference in whether the seat falls from the Tories’ Jeremy Lefroy to Labour.

At least that’s one travel hold-up he won’t be able to blame on immigration.

Updated

Farage accuses Blair of backing 'corporatist EU agenda'

Nigel Farage has responded to Tony Blair’s comments about the dangers of a referendum on leaving the EU. (Blair has not delivered them yet, of course, but never mind; they’ve been briefed already.) Farage made various points.

  • Farage welcomed the fact that Tony Blair was triggering a debate on Europe.

Finally a chance to have a proper debate about the impact of the EU on British national life during this general election campaign.

  • Farage said Labour broke its promise on an EU referendum.

Blair was PM when the government promised a referendum on the EU constitution before the name of that was changed to the “Lisbon Treaty” and he cynically withdrew his offer.

  • Farage said it was no surprise that Blair was backing the “corporatist EU agenda”.

Blair was also an enthusiast for British membership of the Eurozone and had personal ambitions to become “president of Europe”, and how has that worked out for Europe and him?

It is no surprise to see him pat Miliband on the back for signing up to the corporatist EU agenda. There is no doubt that the corporate big business sector that has made Blair so rich is against having a referendum so neither is it a surprise to see Blair peddling their message.

The overall message from the Labour Party is that it wants the British people to trust it yet will not trust the British people to decide how they are governed.

  • Farage said Blair was right to say that Cameron did not want to leave the EU.

[Blair’s] comments on Cameron’s position on Europe are quite right. Cameron has no intention of leaving the EU. All his posturing on the EU is driven by one thing, and one thing alone, fear of the hopes of the British people, a fear that is causing them to support UKIP in their millions.

Nigel Farage campaining in Broadstairs, Kent, yesterday
Nigel Farage campaining in Broadstairs, Kent, yesterday. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA

Updated

On Sky News this morning Theresa May, the Conservative home secretary, refused to rule out the Conservatives cutting the 45% top rate of income tax for the highest earners. Labour says she is the fourth cabinet minister who has refused to rule out what they describe as “another tax cut for millionaires”.

George Osborne, the Conservative chancellor, is holding a press conference now to publicise Conservative figures showing that the previous Labour administration increased taxes on earnings by an average of almost £1,900 per household. I have not seen the document yet, but apparently the figures do not include the amount some families gained from tax credits.

I’ll post more when it becomes available.

Bennett says Green plans to abandon standing army just part of 'long-term vision'

It is still not unusual to hear broadcasters call Ed Miliband “David” by mistake. But this morning we discovered that Natalie Bennett is also suffering the same problem as the Labour leader, in that she is also finding it hard to get her name to stick in the neurons of prominent interviewers. Or, at least, it has not lodged in John Humphrys’s cranium. Because he was interviewing her on Today, and he ended the interviewing thanking “Caroline Lucas”.

Mostly the interview featured Bennett having to play down the significance of Green party commitments. On the plan for a citizen’s income, she said that this would be in the party’s manifesto, but it did not propose introducing it immediately.

Let me say this very slowly – the commitment is in the manifesto. We don’t think we can introduce it in the term of the next parliament; it’s a big change. The Green party has a long-term vision about what Britain should look like. I don’t apologise for that.

And when Humphrys pointed out that the Green’s party’s online policy archive proposes getting rid of a standing army and navy, Bennett said this was just part of the party’s “long-term vision”.

What you are reading out is the policies for a sustainable society, which is our long-term vision ... What you are talking about is the long-term plans many decades into the future.

Over the next five years, the Greens’ plans for defence spending were the same as the coalition’s, she said.

Natalie Bennett in last week’s debate
Natalie Bennett in last week’s debate Photograph: KEN MCKAY / ITV / REX/EPA

And here is David Cameron having breakfast in Edinburgh.

It is obviously not one of his diet mornings.

UPDATE: And Cameron’s wife Samantha went for the Ed Miliband option.

Camerons

Updated

Cameron says he is determined to find out who leaked Sturgeon memo

David Cameron is in Edinburgh this morning. As my colleague Severin Carrell reports, Cameron said he was serious about discovering how was responsible for the leak of the Scotland Office memo claiming that Nicola Sturgeon had told the French ambassador she would like to see Cameron as prime minister after the election. Sturgeon has strongly denied saying this.

David Cameron has insisted he is determined to discover who leaked the disputed Scotland Office memo which claimed Nicola Sturgeon would prefer him to be prime minister.

“It’s not acceptable behaviour,” he said, piling pressure on the Liberal Democrat Scotland secretary Alistair Carmichael and his team.

Speaking before a campaign visit in Edinburgh, Cameron told reporters he hadn’t seen the document but added: “I abhor the leaking of documents. We need to be able to have private diplomatic conversations. I see as prime minister every day the importance of that protocol, so while there’s a proper leak inquiry going on and there really is a proper leak inquiry going on, I want to get to the bottom of who did this.

“It’s not acceptable behaviour. We want to get to the bottom of this.”

He added: “Wheter Nicola Sturgeon said that, I don’t know. My view for the last four years is that Ed Miliband isn’t up to the job and I’m always delighted when anyone joins me in that widely held opinion.”

David Cameron campaigning yesterday
David Cameron campaigning yesterday Photograph: Toby Melville/REUTERS

Tories claim Miliband is 'missing in action'

The Tories are claiming that Ed Miliband is “missing in action” from the campaign, because he has not been very visible for the last two days. Grant Shapps, the Conservative chairman, has just put out this statement.

We are only on day 9 of the election and Labour have wheeled out Tony Blair to prop up a weak Ed Miliband after his faltering performance in the TV debate. Miliband’s been missing in action for the past two days - a sure sign that he’s just not up to it.

Clegg backs Blair’s warning over dangers of an EU referendum

Nick Clegg at his press conference at the National Liberal Club in Westminster
Nick Clegg at his press conference at the National Liberal Club in Westminster Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

Nick Clegg, and Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem chief secretary at the Treasury, were holding a press conference at 7.30am this morning.

They announced that the Lib Dems wanted to raise the income tax threshold to £11,000 in the first year of the next parliament, with the funds coming from an increase in the tax on dividends for higher rate taxpayers. We knew, of course, that the Lib Dems are committed to raising the income tax threshold to £12,500 (like the Tories), but this was an announcement about the timetable for delivering that pledge.

Clegg and Alexander also said they would use all the money raised from a crackdown on tax evasion and tax avoidance to fund tax cuts for middle and low earners.

But, in the Q&A, Clegg also backed Tony Blair’s comments on the Conservatives and Europe.

  • Clegg said that he agreed with Tony Blair’s warning about the dangers of the Conservatives’ plan to have a referendum on Europe.

Given that Blair is saying an in/out EU referendum would lead to “chaos”, it is hard to see how the Lib Dems could back one in the light of Clegg’s comments. But Clegg has been very careful about not ruling out supporting one (in the event that he needs to do a deal with the Tories after the election).

  • Clegg said that, if it had not been for the Lib Dems, the Tories would have been taken over by “the swivel-eyed brigade”.

Here’s Clegg’s quote.

The only thing Tony Blair is likely to omit to point out is that the only reason that the country has remained anchored in the centre ground and anchored in Europe - rather than allowing the swivel-eyed brigade on the Conservative Party backbenches to take over completely - is because the Liberal Democrats have been in office. The mind boggles to imagine what would have happened if we hadn’t been around to act as a bulwark and say we are not going to allow internal Tory Party tensions to disfigure the national interest.

After the general election, David Cameron would be “in hock” to Ukip, Clegg said.

And here’s Clegg’s quote.

The remarkable thing I find about the Conservatives is that here’s a party that’s awash with money, has got unalloyed support from vast swathes of the British press, and they still are not going to win this election. And do you know what that means? It means that David Cameron, whatever he says - whatever his bravura rhetoric might imply - is going to be in hock to Nigel Farage and the right wing of the Conservative Party.

I think that will send a shiver down the spines of lots of moderate voters - including lots of moderate Conservative voters - across the country. He said it this morning: he wants to make a home for Nigel Farage in the Conservative party.

Updated

Good morning. I’m taking over now from Esther and Mark.

Earlier Esther wrote up Andy Burnham’s claims about it getting harder to see a GP. Here’s the poster (or Twitter poster) that Labour has produced to illustrate this.

Updated

More from the Today programme, this time an interview with the home secretary Theresa May , who was talking about figures published today by the Conservatives which they claim show Labour raised taxes on earnings by the average family of “hard-working people” by £1,900 per year in real terms when it was last in power.

(She denied, by the way, that that overused slogan was “a bit silly”, as suggested by John Humphrys.)

Humphrys pointed out that the Institute of Fiscal Studies had called the last Tory tax claim about Labour “misleading”. The point, said May, was that

What happens under Labour is taxes go up and the natural inclination of Conservatives is to cut taxes. The key thing is Labour did it last time, and if they were in government they would do it again.

Meanwhile, the former head of the National Counter Terrorism Security Office has told the BBC that Islamic radicalisation in English prisons is getting worse because of a shortage of prison staff.

“I don’t think that is the problem,” said May, “but of course we need to continue looking at this.” She said the past year had seen a significant increase in police “disruptions” of extremists.

Andy Burnham.
Andy Burnham.

Labour’s health spokesman Andy Burnham has just been on the Today programme talking about Labour’s claim that 600 fewer GPs’ surgeries are open in the evenings and at weekends than in 2010. The Tories and Lib Dems dispute this, saying Labour is using out of date figures. Burnham said many listeners know this from experience, and that the government’s “challenge fund” only benefits a minority of patients.

I’m not blaming GPs by the way. The government has undermined general practice through this parliament. They said they would put GPs at the heart of the NHS and we end the parliament with general practice under intense pressure. I hold the government to account for that.

Asked what Labour would do to fix out of hours care, Burnham said they would put qualified nursing staff back on phone lines rather than the call centre staff used currently, stop the closure of walk-in centres and look at “co-locating” ambulance services with the 111 non-emergency line.

Separately, Burnham was asked whether Labour owed Nicola Sturgeon an apology, after she denied the reports that she secretly hoped for a Tory victory. The party had heavily promoted the claims, published in the Daily Telegraph, but its campaign chief has now deleted his tweets about it.

No apology, said Burnham - though he can’t say whether or not the paper owes her one. As for deleting the tweets,

We’re in an election campaign, people respond in good faith to reports that are made. It falls to us, if there is a dispute about what was said, that you don’t carry on making assumptions about what was said.

Updated

Morning briefing

Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s live election blog. Hope we all had a good Easter break - you may even have spent quality time with your loved ones and managed to avoid much of the news from the campaign trail. Well that’s enough of that nonsense.

Cameron

There’s been little respite for the political leaders all weekend, needless to say – though David Cameron took some time out to bottle-feed this lamb, as he does most Sundays – and there are now just 30 days left until the country goes to the polls. So enjoy it while it lasts, folks.

I’m Esther Addley and I’ll be kicking off proceedings this morning, handing over to Mark Smith for a brief morning stint, who will hand the baton to Andrew Sparrow. Do feel free to contact me by email esther.addley@theguardian.com or tweet me @estheraddley, and I’ll be reading your comments below the line too.

The big picture

With Britain back at work, the parties will be keen to emphasise the vigour and energy and momentum of their campaigns after the long weekend – David Cameron foremost among them, with one of those one-day, whistlestop tours of Britain that political aides must so love organising.

He’s starting with early engagements in Edinburgh, then on to Northern Ireland, Wales and finally to a rally in north Cornwall this evening. Expect to hear lots about how “we have one month to save Britain” and how only a Conservative vote can stop the SNP destroying it, with Ed Miliband’s help.

But first, and speaking of prime ministers, Tony Blair – remember that guy? - is back in his old constituency of Sedgefield this morning warning about the dangers of a referendum on Europe if the Conservatives win. As Patrick Wintour reports here , Blair will warn of “the chaos produced by the possibility, never mind the reality, of Britain quitting Europe”, and praise Miliband’s leadership on the issue. It’s not the former PM’s first intervention into the election – he gave £1,000 to Labour candidates’ campaigns in 106 target seats, though not everyone welcomed the gift, and his input today may meet an equally mixed reception.

Elsewhere, Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander will be treating a few lucky reporters to the first press conference of the day at 7.15am, to announce the Liberal Democrats’ plans to cut tax for middle and low earners by cracking down on tax dodging.

In Scotland, meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy will square up alongside the Scottish Tory and Lib Dem leaders at a TV debate north of the border. Expect the SNP leader to come out swinging after her widely-praised performance, and following a weekend in which she angrily denied saying she would prefer Cameron as PM to Miliband.

You should also know this

Ed Miliband will be campaigning in the southwest, where we can expect to hear lots about the NHS - Labour has claimed that almost 600 fewer GPs’ surgeries are open in the evenings since 2010, which the Conservatives and Lib Dems dispute.

Nicola Sturgeon
Nicola Sturgeon

Nicola Sturgeon will be talking about child poverty in Livingston, near Edinburgh. Nigel Farage, meanwhile, will be doing his own mini-tour around the Midlands, finishing the day in Dudley, where Ukip scent an opportunity after the local Conservative candidate was forced to stand down for allegedly making a deal with the English Defence League over a controversial mosque.

Here’s a short morning reading list to help you catch up:

  • David Cameron has urged Conservatives who have defected to Ukip to “come back home” and vote for Tories.
  • Ed Miliband pledged to defend the BBC licence fee, before adding he “tends not to watch the news, actually”.
  • In this fascinating analysis piece, three political insiders give their assessment of the campaign so far - the defining fact so far, according to Tory peer Andrew Cooper, being that “most people aren’t paying any attention, and those who are can’t wait for it to be over”. Not us, milord!
  • And finally, here’s Charlie Brooker’s take on last week’s leaders’ debate.

Finally, here’s our roundup of how the polls are looking after the long weekend:

Polls

Diary

  • That Lib Dem press conference on tax is at 7.15am. Clegg will then be hopping aboard the Lib Dem battlebus to Manchester and on to Wales.
  • The Today programme has interviews with the shadow health minster Andy Burnham at 7.15am and with home secretary Theresa May at 7.30am. Natalie Bennett, the Green Party leader, speaks to the programme at 8.20am
  • George Osborne will be briefing the press in London, while at the same time the SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon will be in West Lothian with a speech about child poverty.
  • Tony Blair takes to the podium at 10.30, just as Jim Murphy is launching Labour’s Scottish youth campaign.
  • Ed Miliband will be popping up throughout the day in the southwest, while we can expect to hear plenty from David Cameron as he hops across the UK. His final event in Cornwall is at 5.45pm
  • If you’d like to see more of the PM in his lovely constituency pad, ITV will broadcast another candid interview at home with the Camerons tonight at 7.30pm.
  • Alternatively, at 8pm the leaders of the four biggest Scottish parties will line up at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh for a debate broadcast on STV. Those outside Scotland can watch on a livestream on the broadcaster’s website – the usual restrictions are being turned off for the duration.

Read these

  • In the Times (paywall), Rachel Sylvester says that for all Cameron’s strong words in support of the union, an “unholy alliance” is developing between the Tories and the SNP. She writes:

“Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, denies ever telling the French ambassador that she wants to see the Conservative leader back in No 10... The truth is, however, that whatever was said over the Ferrero Rocher, the best outcome for the nationalists would indeed be a Tory-led government in Westminster.”

  • The BBC reports on a poll asking Scottish voters to rank their priorities for the coming campaign: top of the list was increasing the minimum wage and guaranteeing a rise in pensions
  • And the Telegraph has this lovely interview with the man who invented the Swingometer – he predicts a minority Labour government, by the way.

The day in a tweet

If today were a song...

... it would be the Proclaimers’ I’m Gonna Be (500 miles), in tribute to Cameron’s grand tour, though purists will note he is unlikely to be walking any of it. The Proclaimers, you will recall, were vocal Yes campaigners in the independence campaign but we cannot confirm rumours that Nicola Sturgeon will be playing this on loop before her debate appearance tonight.

The key story you’re missing while you’re election-obsessed

The UN has warned that the situation in Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, scene of intense fighting between Isis fighters and Syrian rebels, is “beyond inhumane”.

Updated

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