Charles Kennedy at this morning's press conference. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA
Friday morning, and the Liberal Democrats are quietly pleased with their leader's performance at his Question Time grilling last night. This morning Charles Kennedy is going on their package of policies for the elderly, namely: a citizen's pension for the over 75s, with no means testing, free personal care for the elderly, and replacing the council tax with a local income tax, which the party say will mean six million pensioners will not pay a local tax at all, and four out of five will see their bills lowered.
7.40am: The Lib Dems claim Michael Howard said last week that "council tax is the best form of local taxation there is". Of course, he helped to introduce it in the early 1990s, but Mr Kennedy also attacks the "stick plaster approach" of Labour, putting both pensions and council tax out to review during the election campaign.
Over to questions, and none of the "big guns" – the BBC's Andy Marr, Sky's Adam Boulton, ITN's Nick Robinson – seem to be here this morning. Mr Kennedy expresses his concerns over postal voting to a questioner from Channel Five. John Pienaar feels he's getting somewhere when Mr Kennedy says the party is not intending to raise tax beyond the manifesto commitments, and so any unexpected oil price hike or the like would possibly "curtail spending".
Mr Kennedy reveals he didn't watch the PM's performance last night, as he went home as he had "someone much more important to attend to" – baby Donald, presumably.
And with the welcome news that Monday's Lib Dem presser will be at the slightly later hour of 8.30am, that's it.
