Nigel Farage introduces former Army veteran and UKIP MEP Mike Hookem, who’s speaking in Dudley where the party is campaigning hard against Labour. “I believe that defence of the realm is the first duty of government and that the traditional parties have betrayed our dedicated and highly trained armed forces again and again,” he begins. Mr Hookem’s speech is an unremitting attack on the coalition government’s record - but Labour isn’t left out either. “You couldn’t put a cigarette paper between the three main parties,” he says.

Daily Politics
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The Daily Politics is touring the UK calling in on voters at 18 sites and asking for their views on the general election. In the first of the series, reporter Giles Dilnot spoke to Marcus Williams, Emma Mellor and Shaun MacLellan, who work at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth, to ask how parties could fish for their vote on 7 May. Watch the clip

This was a pretty cool one.

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Nigel Farage calls for a "veterans' administration" separated from the Ministry of Defence and operating at cabinet level. He says UKIP will "push hard" for this in the next parliamen - and points out one in 10 homeless people on the streets are former service personnel.

Nigel Farage, refreshed by that UKIP cupcake, is now speaking in Dudley. "Defence really does matter. It is very important," he says. Plain speaking there, and his audience likes it. They like it even more when he says military budgets could be boosted by a raid on international development spending, too.

Politicians strive hard to make a big impact with social media, but they don't always meet with success. Now a rather baffling clip of Ed Miliband saying "that's not me" has been spliced with the creative efforts of British grime artist Skepta and the resulting Vine has been looped over 600,000 times. We're all a bit confused - we think we might be too old...

Andrew Neil
Daily and Sunday Politics

The Peace Party is fielding four candidates in the general election, with one offering free dance and tai chi classes should he win in a Derbyshire seat. Leader John Morris said the UK's annual £40bn defence budget could be better spent on alternatives to "shooting and bombing and rocketing people out of existence". He told Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics: "Nobody wants war, everybody wants peace." Watch their interview

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Nigel Farage has accepted his party’s momentum has taken a backwards step. Speaking to reporters in Dudley, he said UKIP’s performance in the polls had slipped back to where it stood after last year’s European elections - “14 and a bit per cent”. Things might have gone well since then with victories in the Clacton and Rochester by-elections, but most polls now put UKIP down to the low teens (the BBC Poll of Polls has UKIP on 13%.) "We've slipped back a bit since then, there are 30 days to go and I think the issues UKIP is campaigning on are back in play,” Mr Farage said.

In other matters, cupcake update. We were unaware from the first picture that it was a UKIP cupcake - that explains the expression of joy.

Image source, PA

We're used to seeing him with a pint, but here's Nigel Farage enjoying - quite a lot it seems - a cupcake.

Image source, PA

Image source, PA

If you've moved house in the last 12 months, and feel very strongly that the prime minister should or shouldn't be doing the same thing after 7 May, you need to check you're registered to vote. The Electoral Commission is warning today that only 40% of people who've changed their address in the last year are registered, compared with 94% of homeowners. Time is running out, too - anyone who wants to vote at the general election must register by 20 April. You can do so online here - it doesn't take long!, external

Tony is 100% behind Ed. Ed is 100% happy that Tony is 100% behind him. This Labour love-in was shared via the media, not face-to-face.

The man who won three elections and the one who’d like to win just one (to begin with) were in different parts of the country and not on the same stage. When asked why they weren't together, Mr Miliband told reporters Tony Blair “can speak for himself”; “he speaks very well”; and he’s making an “important intervention” on Europe, which resonates with voters “right across the political spectrum”.

One of those close to the (current) Labour leader said it wasn't about processology (it is a real word), but about the threat to our role in Europe. Another accepted that today’s events will inevitably generate comparisons. Mr Miliband knows that the sight of Mr Blair on the domestic stage runs the risk of reminding people of the former prime minister’s qualities and lead some to question whether they’re shared by the man who wants to be prime minister.

Such a high-profile speech as Tony Blair’s was never going to escape the attention of anti-Europe campaigners. Here’s some of their reactions to his speech:

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That’s right - local elections. Forgotten about them, had you? As well as choosing 650 MPs, local elections are taking place in 35 city councils, 48 unitary councils and 194 district councils this May. And there are five mayoral elections taking place too. So senior Labour figures are signing a “covenant” with local government leaders promising to go ahead with "a new devolution deal for England". “We will reverse a century of centralisation,” deputy leader Harriet Harman says, “by giving back an unprecedented £30 billion of funding from Whitehall, backed by new powers to create the jobs, skills and opportunities for this generation and the next.”

Former PM Tony Blair dons a hard hat for a tour of the Hitachi Trains Europe factory after his big speech. An old hand like him knows the electoral value of hi-vis.

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