Election Live - 23 April

Summary

The Institute for Fiscal Studies says four of the major parties have not provided "anything like full details" on plans to cut the deficit
Labour and the Conservatives attacked on each other's economic plans ahead of the IFS report
Mr Cameron has described the prospect of a Labour government propped up by the SNP as a "toxic tie-up"
The Liberal Democrats launched a disability manifesto pledging a £150m support package for carers
There are 14 days until the general election

Live Reporting

Kristiina Cooper, Andy McFarlane and Bernadette McCague

Cameron: Meeting 'about saving lives'published at 15:50
David Cameron has arrived at an EU summit in Brussels to discuss how to prevent further migrant deaths in the Mediterranean. He said the meeting "had to be about saving lives”.
The UK will be offering HMS Bulwark along with three helicopters and two border patrol ships.
He added:
Quote Message
Saving lives means rescuing these poor people but it also means smashing these gangs and stabilising the region. Now Britain as ever will help. We will use our aid budget to stabilise neighbouring countries and, as the country in Europe with the biggest defence budget, we can make a real contribution."
The robot election?published at 15:39
Newsbeat's election game
Newsbeat
Have you tried BallotBots yet? It's a game all about the general election, except Newsbeat have turned your leaders into robots. Your task is to pair politicians with voters as you progress through a series of zones on your way to Number 10. But beware campaign pitfalls and tricky obstacles.
Try it here on BBC Taster
Tories 'happy with' tuition feespublished at 15:24
Daily Politics
Live on BBC Two
Education Secretary Nicky Morgan says the Conservatives are "very happy with the levels" of university tuition fees in England.
Asked if she would rule out raising the £9,000 cap, she says "it's not something that we're looking at at all".
Pressed further, she insists:
Quote Message
It's not our policy. Why would we want to raise it?It's working.
Galloway to run for London mayor?published at 15:20 British Summer Time 23 April 2015
Adam Boulton, Sky News tweets:
The seat where every vote countspublished at 15:12
Victoria Derbyshire speaks to voters in a marginal seat
Victoria Derbyshire
Voters from Hampstead and Kilburn tell Victoria Derbyshire how being in a marginal seat influences their choice at election time.
Image caption,
Voters from Hampstead and Kilburn
Tuition fees rowpublished at 15:10
Labour's Tristram Hunt accuses the Lib Dems of a "grotesque misleading of the British people" over the coalition's decision to raise university tuition fees in England.
Education Minister David Laws retorts: "We at least had the explanation that were we in a coalition."
He says Labour in government broke a pledge not to introduce tuition fees and another pledge not to increase them.
Sex education agepublished at 15:04
Daily Politics
Live on BBC Two
The five party representatives in the Daily Politics education debate are asked what they think is an appropriate age for sex education for children.
Conservative Nicky Morgan says it should be offered "right the way through from primary school in an age-appropriate way" - by which she means from age 11.
Lib Dem David Laws teaching about relationships from the age of seven.
James Humphreys from the Green Party says pupils "should start personal and social education" at seven but it should be up to teachers to decide when sex education should start.
Jonahan Arnott from UKIP support sex education from 11 but says it is appropriate to teach about relationships and internet safety before that age.
Tristram Hunt says he backs "teaching children in primary schools about the importance of marriage and stable relationships".
Education debate panelpublished at 15:57
Daily Politics
Live on BBC Two
The panel for today's Daily Politics debate, which mainly concerns education policy in England.
Education is a devolved matter in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Greens and private schoolspublished at 14:53
Daily Politics
Live on BBC Two
James Humphreys says the Greens would "take the charitable status away from private schools" and ultimately want them to join the state sector.
He adds that if a private school wants to continue without charitable status, that is "fine" if "regrettable".
It's also fine for faith schools to continue but "if people are prevented from going to a school it is divisive in communities", he argues.
YouGov poll puts Labour ahead by a nose...published at 14:44
...and we mean a nose too. Its latest Nowcast polling data puts Labour 1% ahead of the Conservative party with 34% of the vote.
YouGov says this would give Labour 277 seats versus 270 for the Tories and 27 for the Lib Dems.
There are some worrying forecasts for some high-profile politicians in there too.
YouGov has Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander losing his seat to the SNP.
Lib Dem leader NIck Clegg's Sheffield Hallam seat is considered too close to call, as is the South Thanet seat UKIP leader Nigel Farage is trying to win.
'Unqualified' teacherspublished at 14:38
Tristram Hunt goes on the attack, accusing the Conservative and Lib Dem coalition of being "obsessed with structural change" in the education sector in England.
He is questioned about Labour's position on unqualified teachers. He argues that teachers should be qualified or in the process of gaining a qualification.
Nicky Morgan denies that the presence of a minority of unqualified teachers has affected standards.
"We have a million more children in schools rated as good or outstanding," she says.
Spell it outpublished at 14:29
Daily Politics
Live on BBC Two
Questions have been asked in some quarters, external about the standard of spelling and grammar in Labour's manifesto.
Andrew Neil asks Tristram Hunt: "Why should we trust our children's education to a party whose manifesto is littered with typos, spelling and grammatical mistakes?"
The Shadow Education Secretary says Labour will maintain rigorous tests of "spelling, punctuation and grammar so that in the future, manifestos flow as smoothly as Michael Young's 1945 manifesto did".
The one-off leaderpublished at 14:23
UKIP's candidate for Coventry South tweets...
The Spectator's viewpublished at 14:20
The magazine's editor tweets...
Some fun campaign moments for politicianspublished at 14:15
Andrew Neil
Daily and Sunday Politics
The election can be about opinion polls, education and GDP for some people - but there is often time for a bit of fun as well. The Daily Politics team looked into the archives to find some lighter moments of British and international politicians on the campaign trail. Watch the montage
Education election debatepublished at 14:06
Daily Politics
Live on BBC Two
The latest Daily Politics election debate has just begun.
Today's topic is education.
On the panel are Conservative Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, Lib Dem Schools Minister David Laws, Labour Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt, James Humphreys from the Green Party and Jonathan Arnott from UKIP.
John Ware on Lutfur Rahmanpublished at 14:02
The World at One
BBC Radio 4
John Ware, who reported for BBC One's Panorama on some of the allegations against Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman - including that he'd improperly funnelled public money into organisations run by supporters - speaks to Radio 4's The World at One.
Election Commissioner Richard Mawrey QC ruled Mr Rahman had driven a coach and horses through election law. The judge found the mayor had engaged in corrupt practices, and barred him from standing in the re-run election.
John Ware says the finding that struck him most was the "finding on undue spiritual influence" - in this case, telling Muslims it was their religious duty to vote for him.
He says the court had "exhumed" a little-known law, last used in County Meath when what is now the Republic of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom.
Ice lollypublished at 13:58
Sad man on a train (no, not that one)published at 13:55
Sky News
Spare a thought for Sky News presenter and former political editor Adam Boulton who appears to have spent far too long on the train to Glasgow while out trying to cover the election campaign.
He began tweeting about his travails about six hours ago somewhere near Crewe, pleading for help as his Caledonian sleeper train had apparently broken down.
His most recent tweet informs his followers he has moved a further 40 miles on in his northern odyssey and is now "somewhere north of Wigan". Oh dear.
Robert Peston: The huge choice for voterspublished at 13:51
Robert Peston
Business editor
The economic choice confronting voters is the starkest since 1992. That is the assessment of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) of the main parties' deficit reduction plans.
The best way of seeing this choice is that, if the Tories and Labour deliver their plans, the national debt by 2020 would be £90bn lower in today's money under the Conservatives, but cuts to so-called unprotected government departments would be just £1bn under Labour compared with £30bn under the Tories.