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Image source, PA

Until the manifestos are released, the internal party debates over what should be in them continue apace. Tory ex-cabinet minister Liam Fox, for example, is pushing for the Conservatives to adopt a slightly different approach to selling deficit reduction. "Austerity", he says, isn't the best way forward. “As our plans for deficit reduction and elimination go forward, we should call our approach what it really is: living within our means,” he writes on ConservativeHome, external. Dr Fox argues this is “more virtuous” and has the added benefit of helping “expose the essential dishonesty of the Left’s alternative”.

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And then comes the immigration question and that pesky target... "That is the right ambition for us to have," Theresa May says of the now downgraded pledge to cut net migration to the tens of thousands. It was a promise in 2010 but now is just an ambition. "The reason we want to do that is we recognise that although immigration is good for the country you need some control on the immigration system," Mrs May says.

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BBC News Channel

Theresa May attacks the Labour government's record on tax and contrasts it with her own party's promises: "We would take a further million people out of paying income tax altogether as a Conservative government," she says. But how will a lower threshold for the higher rate of tax be paid for? "We've been very clear," Ms May insists, before not actually offering any details. "I think we've actually set out rather more than other parties in the past," she protests. "Parties don't set out absolutely everything that's going to be in a comprehensive spending review,"

BBC News Channel

Theresa May, now on the BBC News Channel, isn't very impressed by Tony Blair's speech on Europe. "The most interesting aspect of Blair's intervention is the fact he has intervened - it shows the weakness of Ed Miliband," she says. Will it have an impact on the campaign? Mrs May says "most people" looking at the EU issue will be aware it's the Conservatives who are offering an in-out referendum.

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BBC Radio 4 Today

Image source, Labour Party

“The role of the manifesto has changed because we’re in an era of multi-party politics,” Patrick Diamond, who helped write Labour’s 2010 manifesto, tells Today. That means controversy over "red lines" and more focus on what isn't in them, Danny Finkelstein says. “You have to read the manifestos quite closely and this time the most important thing is to read what… the parties think about each other, not just themselves.” Voters don’t see it that way, though - Miranda Green thinks they still view manifestos as a set of “rigidly binding promises”.

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BBC Radio 4 Today

Conservative peer Daniel Finkelstein, who helped draft the 1997 and 2001 manifestos, tells the Today programme the problem with the job is “committing people to things that you’re not completely sure will be practical”. For a junior party, the document is more of an opportunity, Paddy Ashdown’s ex-press secretary Miranda Green says. “When you’re an opposition party that’s not going to get anywhere near Whitehall your manifesto is a marketing document,” she adds.

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BBC News Channel

Isabel Hardman, from the Spectator, tells Election Today that Danny Alexander has "complained so many times about the Tories" that his bosses vs workers claim won't have the impact it otherwise might have done. She goes on: "I can imagine someone saying it as a joke, rather sourly" and Danny Alexander writing it down to use later. Nevertheless, argues Owen Jones, from the Guardian, that sort of comment is powerful ammunition for Labour because the idea that the Tories are the party of the rich is a potent one.

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Carole Walker
Conservative campaign correspondent

Image source, Reuters

David Cameron is engaging in an unusually frenetic day of campaigning today, jetting around the UK to all four nations to push his message of warning about the "disaster of an Ed Miliband government". He's starting out in Scotland and then heading to Northern Ireland and Wales before wrapping up in the south west of England to target the Lib Dems.

"All four nations are growing; jobs are being created the country over; taxes are coming down; the deficit has been halved as a share of our economy; and more families can look forward to a brighter future," Mr Cameron says. "Of course more remains to be done, but real progress has been made. In just one month’s time, that progress is at risk."

The Northern Ireland visit is particularly interesting because the Conservatives have no seats there. But in the event of a hung parliament, Democratic Unionists could end up playing a crucial role.

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