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BBC Trending has this morning been following a different story from the constituency of Bradford West where George Galloway is defending a majority of just over 10,000.

At a hustings on Wednesday where that voters were promised would be about the issues and not personality it got pretty personal pretty quickly it seems.

The Respect candidate attacked his Labour opponent Naz Shah saying she tried to join his party as recently as February and that she had lied about being forced into marriage at the age of 15.

Ms Shah was forced to admit that she had campaigned for Mr Galloway in the 2012 by-election he won and that she voted for him at the time. She claimed she had joked about wanting to join Respect after having been selected as Labour's candidate.

With full details and the reaction from a surprising contingent on Twitter are here.

Robert Smith:

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“This is absolutely desperate stuff from a Conservative party that has nothing positive to say in this election,” says Labour campaign strategist Lucy Powell on World at One.

Ms Powell says Labour has been absolutely clear about its policy on Trident.

"I am actually embarrassed that the defence secretary of my country has made these comments," she adds.

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Asked if he agreed with the "stab in the back" phrase used by Michael Fallon, Liam Fox told World at One:

"I think that unless we get absolute clarity from the Labour Party, and we're absolutely sure where they would be, then we have to assume that they are not fit to protect this country by having a continuous nuclear deterrent and in a very dangerous world that's a very dangerous position for any party to have."

A bus that transported Margaret Thatcher and government figures around Northern Ireland in 1983 is up for sale. In a Daily Politics film, Adam Fleming spoke to Todd Chamberlain of Tanks A Lot about the disguised security features on the military vehicle - which bore the name of a fake company. Watch their interview on the bus in a Northamptonshire field

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"It’s an appalling way to run an election campaign... we need to have a serious debate about Trident," says Lib Dem Business Secretary Vince Cable on the World at One.

If George Osborne’s spending reductions are put through it would lead to a 25% reduction in defence spending, he says.

"It would leave the armed forces with not much more than a ceremonial role,” Mr Cable adds.

He says politicians “can get some short term advantage from negative campaigns” but that they “tend to turn off voters”.

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Turning to negative campaigns, YouGov's Peter Kellner says there are two examples of negative campaigns, one which worked and another which failed rather dismally.

The first against Neil Kinnock in 1987 saw the Conservatives attack the former Labour leader for historic links to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) at a time when the UK was still in the grip of the Cold War. Mr Kinnock lost that election to Margaret Thatcher, who secured her third term in office.

The second campaign - which failed - in 1997 was conceived when the Tories hoped a poster showing Mr Blair with demon eyes would put people off the young Labour leader. The poster backfired and Mr Blair was elected with a landslide Labour majority.

But if the Conservatives can give the public the impression that Ed Miliband isn’t up to the job of being prime minister "then they might land one or two blows", Mr Kellner says

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“It’s been nip and tuck between the two parties since the last conference season” the head of pollsters YouGov Peter Kellner tells World at One. He adds “unless it [the polls] breaks [for one party] in the next couple of weeks" we’re going to have a hung parliament.

Min:

Laura Kuenssberg
Newsnight Chief Correspondent

Why the worries? Many Conservatives have long been unhappy at the campaigns tight focus on the economy and Ed Miliband himself.

But the latest polling suggests Labour's ground operation in closely fought English marginals is making more headway than their better financed one.

As for that manifesto, one source told me drafts have had some "batty" ideas and been badly put together and poorly written. In such a close race, slamming the character of your opponent is unlikely to be a substitute for attractive and carefully worked out plans.

Laura Kuenssberg
Newsnight Chief Correspondent

Whatever you think about Trident, whatever you think about Ed Miliband running against his brother to become the Labour leader, the level of Michael Fallon's attack on him suggests one thing.

There are nerves in the Conservative party, significant nerves, about its failure to make headway in the campaign so far.

For months they have been waiting to break ahead, maintaining their line that Ed Miliband was not a strong leader and he would cause havoc with the economy. This sudden twist that he is so ruthless as to have stabbed his brother in the back, and might do the same to the country, gives a sense that the party is jittery, and just days away from its manifesto launch, searching around for messages, even unusually personal attacks that might land.

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The Green party's Shahrar Ali has a question for UKIP's Patrick O'Flynn. On the Daily Politics, he asks: "Do you not realise what you are doing to race relations in this country?" Mr O'Flynn tells him that he is trying to "improve race relations" by reducing the number of unskilled workers coming in the UK.

The deputy leader of the Green Party, Shahrar Ali, says all the mainstream political parties are trying to "out-UKIP" UKIP on immigration. He tells the Daily Politics that the long-term aspiration of the Greens was to reduce immigration controls. He says: "We are in favour of free movement," adding that the UK "could cope" with 500,000 people coming into the country.

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Phil Brown, Lowestoft:

Iain Watson
Political correspondent