Summary

  • Deputy PM Nick Clegg said millions of public sector workers would be spared pay cuts under Liberal Democrat plans

  • David Cameron said a Conservative government would create an extra 600,000 free childcare places

  • Former SNP candidate Alex Salmond said his suggestion he would be writing Labour's Budget in May was a joke

  • UKIP's Nigel Farage admitted the tone he has used on issues such as immigration and HIV was aimed to "get noticed"

  • There are 15 days until the general election

Live Reporting

Dominic Howell, Andy McFarlane and Victoria Park

  1. It’s that man again

    The Guardian

    Grant ShappsGetty Images

    One of the big overnight stories is that of Grant Shapps, the Conservative Party chairman, who faces a smidgen of difficulty over the Guardian’s splash about his alleged Wikipedia antics. He’s denied secretly changing entries about himself and other Tories on the online encylcopedia. Volunteers at Wikipedia, who administer its pages, told the Guardian that the Contribsx account which has been making the alterations "is either run by Shapps directly or being run by someone else...but under his clear direction". According to the newspaper, a third of the contributions were made to Shapps' own Wikipedia entry while the rest were "largely unflattering changes" to the online pages of other senior political figures. Mr Shapps said the story was “untrue from start to finish” and that it was “categorically false and defamatory”.

  2. Clegg's public sector pledge

    Public sector strikeReuters

    Millions of public sector workers would be spared pay cuts under Liberal Democrat plans.

    Leader Nick Clegg said wages would rise in real terms for two years from 2016, and then above inflation once the deficit has been dealt with.

    He said public servants had "made enough sacrifices".

    But the PCS union said that in real terms the Lib Dems had cut the "pay, pensions and jobs of public servants" in government.

  3. Good morning

    Hello there - it's Aiden James and Alex Stevenson here with another day of campaign coverage ahead of us. It's a beautiful morning here in Westminster and we'll be bringing you all the big political developments of the day - as well as some of the smaller ones, too.