General election 2010: Gordon Brown names the day

Gordon Brown looks pensive as he leaves 10 Downing Street to go to Buckingham Palace
Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP

Bookies' odds on College Green outside the Houses of Parliament
Photograph: Graham Turner

Cameron, returns from a run near his home in London
Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

The television news anchors Alistair Stewart and Huw Edwards wait for the PM in Downing Street
Photograph: Kieran Doherty/Reuters

Brown heads for his car as he travels to the palace to ask the Queen to dissolve parliament
Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

The Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, speaks to staff at the party's headquarters in London
Photograph: Reuters

Cameron prepares to speak to the media as Brown calls the general election
Photograph: Sang Tan/AP

The PM's car travels past crowds in front of Buckingham Palace Photograph: Graham Turner

Brown announces the date of the election outside No 10 as his ministers look on
Photograph: David Levene

Cameron speaks to Conservative supporters in London
Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Sarah Teather, of the Liberal Democrats, the foreign secretary, David Miliband, and the Conservative Michael Gove wait to be interviewed by the press on College Green, outside the Houses of Parliament
Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Brown meets members of the public at St Pancras station, in London
Photograph: Reuters

The Scottish first minister, Alex Salmond, gets on the campaign trail at an indoor bowls complex in Edinburgh
Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Journalists board the Tory battle bus
Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Brown and his wife, Sarah, take the train to Rochester, in Kent
Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA