CK:

Norman Smith
Assistant political editor

Newsnight

It didn’t make it out into the cold light of day in time for this campaign - and now the Chilcot Inquiry’s final report into the Iraq War is unlikely to be published this year,BBC Newsnight has learned. “Nobody thinks it will come out this year,” a source close to the inquiry has told Mark Urban. Politicians are virtually unanimous in voicing their frustration at the delay - including Tony Blair, who has denied he is behind it. Suggestions to the contrary, he’s made clear, are “incorrect and politically motivated”.

Image source, Getty Images

tweets:, external

BBC Radio 4 Today

Mr Hague insists Labour's only route to power is dependent on the SNP.

BBC Radio 4 Today

William Hague tells the Today programme the SNP has stated it would vote down a minority Conservative administration - and that is why Ed Miliband is in "a more dangerous situation" in relation to the nationalists.

BBC Radio 4

Image source, PA

William Hague says former prime minister John Major will stress that the tactics of the SNP, if the party holds the balance of power with Labour, will "set Scotland against England and vice versa and that will be disastrous for the United Kingdom". By the way, this blast from the past picture was taken in 2001.

BBC Breakfast

Image source, Reuters

On the situation in the Mediterranean, Ed Miliband says it's simply unacceptable for the EU to "let people drown". He adds: "It is a stain on the EU if we don't take proper action."

BBC Breakfast

Ed Miliband again rules out a coalition with the SNP. He then moves to attack the prime minister on the story of the day: "I think David Cameron is playing fast and loose with the United Kingdom... he's actually trying to boost the SNP." He wants to make it completely clear: What happens in a Labour government "led by me... will be decided by me". He says Mr Cameron should be "taking on the nationalist party" - like him, and then says: "I think David Cameron is threatening the integrity of the United Kingdom with the games he's playing."

tweets:, external

BBC Radio 4

William Hague tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme the capsizing of boats in the Mediterranean with the loss of hundreds of lives is "catastrophic". He says there is a moral imperative to save lives.

tweets:, external

BBC Breakfast

On the question of whether he's going to become prime minister, Ed Miliband does get a bit more evasive - he reels off a list of problems with the present government. "Viewers at home will make their decision about whether the NHS has gone backwards," he says. That was a remarkably deft reversion to Labour's topic of the day. "I really fear for what will happen to the NHS under David Cameron."

BBC Radio 4 Today

Image source, PA

Now over on Today, William Hague, the Conservative former foreign secretary is asked about Libya. He says Britain is not in the business of exporting arms to Libya, but has offered the country £60m of assistance to ensure there's some politically agreed way forward. He says Britain has saved thousands of lives in Libya by helping oust Gaddafi.

Ed Miliband admits that he'd be hit by the mansion tax policy Labour is pushing through to help fund the NHS. But he doesn't mind, he says. On that, and on the non-dom rule, he says it's Labour which is making changes so people end up "paying their fair share". All this is part of a "proper deficit plan" to ensure the government pays down the deficit every year "and balances the books".

BBC Breakfast

Ed Miliband says "the trust in politics is too fragile" for Labour to make promises about funding the NHS in the future that it doesn't know if it can keep. "People can trust us because they know for years we've always invested in the NHS," he says.

BBC Breakfast

Ed Miliband is being interviewed on BBC Breakfast, where he's asked about Labour's plans to help the NHS. He says his party will push through an emergency Budget that will get the "money flowing" into the NHS. What about the £8bn that the head of NHS England thinks is needed by 2020? Mr Miliband says he won't break his "iron rule" of making a commitment where "I don't know where the money's coming from". His focus is on a "rescue plan" for 2015.

tweets:, external

BBC Radio 4 Today

Asked about the SNP, and criticisms of the Conservatives' strategy of highlighting the possibility of nationalists helping Labour into power, William Hague denies that it's the Conservatives who have been stirring up trouble: "We have to sound the alarm here - we have the danger here that people who want to break up the United Kingdom will be running the United Kingdom in a few weeks' time," he says. He blames the media for talking up Scottish nationalism and says without a Conservative government Britain will be faced with the SNP making “impossible demands”:

BBC Radio 5 Live

In July 2012, William Hague said Libya was a "tremendous success story" - does he think the same now? The ex-foreign secretary doesn't answer the question directly, saying that the Mediterranean migrants are coming from other countries too. Pressed again, he concedes: "We have all struggled to put Libya back on her feet." The problem is that Britain isn't in control of the situation there, he argues. And when Muammar Gaddafi was in power he allowed migrants to attempt crossings to Europe. "We have absolutely stood by Libya," Mr Hague adds.