Earlier Ed Miliband made clear he would not break his “iron rule” of offering more funding for the NHS; right now Labour will only stump up £2.5bn of the £8bn the head of the NHS says is needed by 2020. “Labour have time and time again refused to commit to this spending,” Liberal Democrat Health Minister Norman Lamb says in response. “Until Labour agree to make the necessary resources available, all they can offer is warm words and nothing more.” He says the £8bn is essential and that the Lib Dems are the only party to commit to spending it - and say how it will be funded.

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Sam, Sheffield:

Steve Clarke:

Robin Brant
UKIP campaign correspondent

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UKIP's policy chief says the UK should accept refugees from Syria or Libya but that number should not be in the "tens of thousands". Suzanne Evans - pictured here at the UKIP manifesto launch - said the latest boat sinking and mass drowning of hundreds of migrants from North Africa was a "devastating tragedy". But she warned of what she called the "fine line" between the UK living up to its UN obligations on refugees and taking action that may "encourage people to come".

The party's economy spokesman Patrick O'Flynn said the sinkings were an "extremely bad outcome" of the UK and France-led military intervention in Libya in 2011.

Nigel Farage has recently that he believes that was the prime minister's biggest foreign policy failing, adding that the boat deaths should be on David Cameron's conscious.

Yesterday, he said if he was prime minister he would send the Royal Navy to assist in a military operation in the Mediterranean.

The Sun

Toby Perkins, the Labour candidate for Chesterfield, finds himself in the spotlight today as the Sun Nation website, external reveals he’s been paying interns just £4 a day. Labour HQ has “clarified” the position of his staff by saying they’re volunteers who won’t be paid at all, it reports. But Lib Dem rival Julia Cambridge isn’t impressed. “This smacks of utter hypocrisy and is a slap in the face to local voters,” she says. “I’m gobsmacked.”

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The Spectator

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Genuine rallies and meetings, building a mass membership, fighting a positive campaign: Nicola Sturgeon is doing well because she’s breaking all the rules, the Spectator’s Fraser Nelson writes today, external. These are “tactics that belong in the 1970s”, he says. “Not only is this hugely un-modern but it is causing chaos.” It’s a chaos that extends to his family members; a picture of Ms Sturgeon and Alex Salmond sandwiching Mr Nelson’s “Auntie Patsy” has got the Speccie journalist feeling rather “odd”. But then this random encounter just reflects the SNP’s very different kind of campaign, he suggests.

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BBC News Channel

Isabel Hardman, of the Spectator, says Conservative MPs are pleasantly surprised by how much impact the tactic of focusing on the SNP has had on the doorstep. Pollsters say people being questioned are now bringing up the idea of a Labour-SNP pact unprompted, so it is cutting through, she adds.

Owen Jones, Guardian columnist, says it is "disingenuous" of William Hague to deny this is a tactic - something the senior Tory did a short time ago on the News Channel. "It's a key linchpin of their strategy," Jones argues.

BBC Radio 4 Today

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Nigel Dodds, deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, is on the Today programme talking about his party’s manifesto, which is being launched today. “We want to be key players in strengthening the United Kingdom against the tide of nationalism,” he says. “We think it’s important we enhance British identity and promote it at every opportunity.” Would the DUP support any other party in Westminster? “We don’t seek coalition, we don’t seek positions for ourselves,” he says. Instead it’s about “strengthening the United Kingdom. Mr Dodds won’t rule out working with either the Conservatives or Labour parties - but it sounds like their cooperation would only extend to propping up a minority government.

Iain Watson
Political correspondent

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Peter Warrington, Nottingham:

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Image source, Nick Clegg

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BBC Radio 4 Today

Asked about the SNP's progress in terms of its membership over the last six months, Alistair Darling says "a lot of people think this is something of a free hit". You can't get change from independence, he says. You need a Labour government. And yet the Conservatives are "encouraging people daily to vote for the nationalist party... they've given up on trying to sell themselves on their own merits." Mr Darling says last year's campaign was "divisive" - again. He's making the same point again and again, and undoubtedly doing so with passion. "We cannot allow ourselves to be held to ransom by a party whose sole aim is... the destruction of the United Kingdom," he says.

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BBC Radio 4 Today

Alistair Darling says his preference is for a majority Labour government - no surprises there. "The problem which we have got with the SNP is its reason for existence is it wants to have independence," he says. So why is David Cameron "bigging up the SNP?" The Conservatives have entered into a "dangerous, destructive embrace of the nationalists". He warns of "another divisive period" and says the Tories' "flirting with English nationalism" is pretty "desperate".

BBC Radio 4 Today

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Here's former Labour chancellor Alistair Darling on the Today programme - the man who spearheaded the 'No' campaign in last autumn's independence referendum. Labour would try to form a minority government if it doesn't get over 50% of Commons seats, he says. The idea of a Labour-SNP coalition is "for the birds", he says. "The idea we would enter into an agreement which would be destructive not just for the party but for the country is nonsense - we won't do it," he says.

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Giving local authorities the green light to charge 200% council tax doesn’t exactly sound like a vote-winner -but the Liberal Democrats are pushing ahead with a limited version of the idea they think will help in areas where house prices are being pushed up by second home-owners. The party’s Countryside Charter, launched today, would introduce a levy to ensure “fairness in the housing market”. The policy could help the Lib Dem effort to hold on to their seats in Cornwal, which has the greatest number of people recording a second address in the country. More here.