Summary

  • Five Westminster opposition party leaders took part in a debate, with Labour's Ed Miliband and the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon in heated exchanges

  • UKIP's Nigel Farage accused the audience - which was independently selected and broadly representative - of being "left-wing"

  • Leanne Wood, of Plaid Cymru, and the Green Party's Natalie Bennett took on Mr Farage over his attitude to migrants

  • In other news - Richard Desmond, whose publishing company owns the Daily and Sunday Express, gave £1m to UKIP

  • Nick Clegg said a vote for the Lib Dems could prevent a right-wing coalition of the Conservatives, UKIP and the DUP - or "Blukip"

  • There are 21 days left until polling day

Live Reporting

Tim Fenton, Andy McFarlane, Bernadette McCague and Tom Moseley

  1. Do any of the candidates have a Plan B?

    Much of what we have heard from most parties seems to be predicated on the UK enjoying continued prosperity, effectively funded by economic growth.

    History has taught us that unexpected events can torpedo that growth.

    Murphy's Law tells us that, 'If anything can go wrong, the chances are that it will go wrong'.

    This evening would be a good time to ask candidates if they have a "Plan B" to cover the possibility of the economy suffering a knock-back, as a faltering economy will send much that is on offer at the moment right down the pan.

    Paul Barrett-Brown from Powys

  2. Be prepared

    BBC News Channel

    Lance Price, former Labour director of communications, says tonight's TV debate is a bit of a risk for Ed Miliband, but he thinks he shouldn't be worried by the prospect of being ganged up against by the others. That's what happens to you when you're prime minister, he says, so you need to prepared and show that you're up for it, if you're aspiring to win the keys to No 10.

  3. Where's the 'oomph'?

    Professor Tony Travers

    There is a perception that the UKIP election campaign "hasn't really gone with great oomph", says Professor Tony Travers of the London School of Economics, so party leader Nigel Farage may want to use tonight's BBC debate to show UKIP can win votes and score points against Labour, and not just the Conservatives.

  4. Labour on 'Coalition kids'

    Daily Politics
    Live on BBC Two

    As parents in England find out which primary school their children will be attending, the BBC's Daily Politics is investigating the state of primary schools. Labour says there's a "growing crisis" with more than 100,000 five to seven-year-olds being being taught in "supersize" classes". Labour's education spokesperson Kevin Brennan tells the Daily Politics that things are "getting worse" for Coalition Kids - Labour's term for children born in the last five years. And he says Labour wouldn't allow class sizes to go over 30.

  5. Cameron: Labour-SNP would be a 'coalition of chaos'

    David Cameron

    The Conservative Party has just one seat in Scotland. And Prime Minister David Cameron in north of the border campaigning today to try to save that one seat which some are predicting it could lose. Mr Cameron gave a speech earlier in which he said Labour and the Scottish National Party posed a clear threat to the future of the United Kingdom saying the two parties would form "a coalition of chaos".

  6. 'Very little detail'

    BBC News Channel

    Institute for Fiscal Studies director Paul Johnson says the parties have avoided talking in detail about their deficit reduction plans during the election campaign. But, he adds, there is a clear difference between Conservatives and Labour on their approach to the deficit.

  7. Chancellor George Osborne

    tweets:

    On way to IMF spring meetings. Clear warning in Fiscal Monitor of consequences for deficit of anything other than Conservative Government

  8. Campaign donations

    News just in on donations the political parties have so-far received during the general election campaign. Elections watchdog the Electoral Commission has published the first of four reports ahead of polling day, and it shows Labour took home nearly four times more in donations than the Conservatives.

    Ed Miliband's party received £1,887,312 compared with David Cameron's £501,850, between 30 March and 5 April. UKIP scooped £35,416, the Lib Dems £20,000 and the Greens £8,400.

    By law political parties must submit weekly reports to the commission on donations and loans totalling more than £7,500, if they are fielding candidates at the UK general election.

  9. 'Won't buy it'

    Earlier this week, David Cameron announced plans to extend the right-to-buy housing scheme to social housing tenants, as part of the Conservatives' election manifesto launch. Writing in the New Statesman, David Orr says the policy may have scored good headlines "but the public won't buy it". He says it will do little to address housing shortages. More here.

  10. Clegg lacks credibility

    Nick Clegg's attack on "Blukip" would be much more credible, if he had not spent the last five years propping up a right-wing Tory government, who presided over tax cuts for the rich, while driving over a million people to food banks due to zero-hour contracts and benefit sanctions.

    Christopher Bowyer, Politics Live reader

  11. Barnett formula fun

    Nicola SturgeonPA

    Has the Scotsman found a chink in Nicola Sturgeon's armour ahead of tonight's leaders' debates? The newspaper claims to have.

    It say Scotland's first minister and SNP leader appears to have backed down over full fiscal autonomy following days of criticism over a £7.6bn black hole it would create in Scotland's economy.

    It quotes Ms Sturgeon as saying: “So, for as long as Scotland’s funding is still determined by Westminster, then the Barnett formula should stay in place. Obviously if Scotland was to become in years ahead fiscally autonomous then we are in a different position but the Barnett formula should stay until that time.”

  12. 'Where are the savings, Ed?'

    Why is no-one talking about defence? It has to be the number one priority, the silver bullet (pun intended) for the Tories.

    There’s not much point arguing about NHS and housing quotas if we can’t protect our nation.

    It’s just re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

    Everyone seems to have forgotten that we might not be here to vote at all if it wasn’t for the nuclear deterrent.

    Trident is essential, even more so now, as we enter not only a renewed Cold War, but also face the increasing likelihood that insane terrorists will one day get hold of nuclear weapons.

    SteveCarpenter from Camberley

  13. 'Snowball's chance in Hades of clearing the deficit'

    "You don't need to be a genius to understand that there isn't a snowball's chance in Hades that the budget will be in surplus by 2020 let alone in three years' time," Daily Telegraph associate editor Jeremy Warner tells Sky News.

    That's in response to the revelation that the IMF has called the Office for Budget Responsibility's economic forecasts optimistic and said that real sustained economic growth is someway off.

    Mr Warner says the additional problem here is that the research was carried out by the IMF before the political parties made a number of their election promises, which means that specific spending pledges won't have been taken into account because they weren't known.

    He adds there is no way any political party can clear the deficit without spending cuts and tax rises.

  14. SNP 'chain to Labour's wrecking ball'

    While Nick Clegg is warning of a right-wing coalition David Cameron is repeating his warning about an alliance between Labour and the SNP.

    Launching the Conservatives' Scottish manifesto in Glasgow, the Tory leader says this would be a "coalition of chaos".

    The SNP acting as the chain to Labour's wrecking ball, running right through our economic recovery - and it will be you who pays the price. With job losses, massive tax rises and an economy back on the brink of bankruptcy. In short it won't work for Scotland, but it will hurt Scotland."

  15. List of 20 marginals

    Nick Clegg

    Nick Clegg says: "The only people standing between Blukip and real power are a small number of Liberal Democrat candidates."

    The party is publishing a list of 20 marginal constituencies where, the Lib Dem leader argues, "a Conservative victory could hand the keys to Number 10" to a right-wing coalition.

    On the list is the Cheadle constituency, where Mr Clegg is making his speech.

    You can see the full list of candidates in Cheadle here.

  16. Clegg's vision of 'Blukip' Britain

    Nick Clegg continues his pitch for Liberal Democrat involvement in the next government:

    Can you imagine what would happen to our country, to Britain, if the prime minister has to bargain with Nigel Farage and his friends for votes? Our public services cut to the bone, our communities divided, our shared British values of decency, tolerance and generosity cast aside. Instead of Liberal Democrats holding the balance of power and using it to keep the government anchored in the liberal centre ground, Nigel Farage and his friends in the Conservative and the DUP will drag Britain further and further to the right?"

  17. 'Right-wing alliance'

    Nick Clegg describes the possible coalition he calls "Blukip":

    It is right-wing alliance that brings together people who don't believe in climate change, who reject gay rights, who want the death penalty back, and people who want to scrap human rights legislation and privatise our schools and our hospitals."

  18. 'Beware Blukip'

    Nick Clegg tells supporters at Cheadle College:

    Nick Clegg

    The prospect of a left-wing alliance between Labour and the SNP has already been well considered, analysed and covered. But what's equally possible is an alliance that will drag Britain further and further to the right. Blukip - a bloc of right-wingers from UKIP, the Conservatives and the DUP, which could hold the balance of power."

  19. My Manifesto

    Are you the kind of person who tries to go "off menu" in a fast-food restaurant? Do you look forward to the pick-and-mix counter more than the movie? Would you rather have a running buffet than a three-course meal?

    Then the BBC's My Manifesto is for you. We've gone through the offerings of the parties seeking election to Westminster, so you can create your own blueprint for government based on what each has to say on a specific issue.

    You may end up with a "rainbow coalition" of parties and policies - or have created a political Frankenstein's monster. But at least it'll be all yours.

    Screengrab

  20. Glenn Campbell, BBC Scotland political correspondent

    Nicola Sturgeon and John SwinneyGetty Images

    John Swinney (pictured with Nicola Sturgeon) is Finance Secretary in the Scottish government

    The SNP's John Swinney has set out his party's manifesto for jobs. The plan includes pushing to increase the minimum wage across the UK to £8.70 an hour by 2020, campaigning for the high speed rail link - HS2 - to be extended to Scotland and increasing UK public spending by half of 1% in the next Parliament, which the nationalists say would "end austerity". Mr Swinney was speaking on a visit to an architectural business in Leith, before heading to London to help prepare his party leader, Nicola Sturgeon, for tonight's opposition leaders' debate on the BBC.