The Conservative Party Chairman Patrick McLoughlin has recalled comments previously made by former Labour Prime Minister, Gordon Brown about Jeremy Corbyn, saying he agrees with Mr Brown.

Mr Brown had been on the campaign trail today in the West Midlands today, making a rallying call for Labour supporters not to abandon the party. He told supporters that politics went in cycles and that "you can be up in 1997 and down by the 2010s" but that the important lesson was to stay and fight. However, in his speech, Mr Brown failed to mention Mr Corbyn at all by name,

So now the Tory party chairman Patrick McLoughlin has reissued extracts from previous interviews and speeches where Mr Brown directly criticised his Labour successor.

Mr McLoughlin said: "Gordon Brown was absolutely right when he said Jeremy Corbyn can’t provide the leadership our country needs, that he would put our economy at risk and cozy up to our enemies."

Lib Dem leader Tim Farron has defended his policy that the UK should accept 50,000 Syrian refugees, stressing: "Sometimes you've just got to do the right thing."

He argues there are five million displaced people in the world - one million of them in Europe - adding that "the UK has done far, far too little to help those people directly".

The proposal would extend the government scheme to accept 20,000 refugees by 2020 and would amount to "about 80 people per parliamentary constituency".

Mr Farron argues that in the aftermath of the Second World War death camps, the UK took in refugees from Europe.

"Our economic position back in 1945 was a lot weaker than it is today," he says.

"Sometimes you've just got to do the right thing - five million displaced people, a million of them in Europe - and the UK shames itself, or at least our government shames us, by turning our back on the most desperate people in the world."

He adds:

Former PM rallies Labour members with a speech in Coventry - but doesn't mention Jeremy Corbyn.

The Today programme's Nick Robinson conducted a focus group with voters in the key marginal seat of Halifax earlier and asked them what was important to them: 

The Pirate Party is standing 10 candidates in the 2017 general election.

The former shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna says there are "a whole load of policies" in the leaked Labour election manifesto which could command public support.

Stressing he has not read the document himself, Mr Ummuna, who's been out campaigning in the West Midlands, used the issue of Britain's railways as an example, saying his own local train services had been "appalling".

“If you look at East Coast mainline, when that was run by publicly-owned company, it actually did a really good job for commuters and the profits that were generated were ploughed back into the service.”

On the leak of the document itself, Mr Umunna said while there might be some temporary focus on the "soap opera...some of the personalities", most voters wanted to talk about "everyday things that affect people’s lives.” 

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While the "Clause 5" meeting's been going on today, BBC assistant political editor Norman Smith's been keeping us up to date.

No such thing as bad publicity? Piffle, as Labour have discovered over the leak of their manifesto.

Labour's Emily Thornberry has told reporters she has "no idea" who leaked the party's draft general election manifesto.

The shadow foreign secretary said the meeting to agree the party's proposals was "going very well" but she would not say if any changes had been made to the leaked draft.

Theresa May visited the Labour-held Southampton Test constituency this afternoon - causing a few issues for BBC South's Peter Henley to contend with.

Earlier this week, Jeremy Corbyn visited the constituency in support of Labour candidate Alan Whitehead, who has held the seat since 1997.

The umbrella organisation representing the music industry in Britain has called on all parties to protect the sector given the overall contribution it makes to the British economy.

Launching its election manifesto today, UK Music outlined a five-point plan on intellectual property rights, international action and skills and education.

UK Music chairman Andy Heath said: “Securing the best deal for music must be achieved for our industry, our economy and for the world’s music fans.

"UK Music wants to ensure the continued prosperity of the music sector, which contributes £4.1 billion to the economy and employs almost 120,000 people."  

The prime minister's been out and about leafleting in Southampton today. Not everyone was at home - or were they?

Image source, Getty Images

Labour's draft general election manifesto has been compared by some with the party's 1983 manifesto - how do the two documents measure up?

The 1983 manifesto was written at a time of economic turmoil, mass unemployment and Cold War tensions and is arguably more ambitious in its scope. It is certainly framed in more forceful language.

"Within days of taking office, Labour will begin to implement an emergency programme of action, to bring about a complete change of direction for Britain," it says.

"Our priority will be to create jobs and give a new urgency to the struggle for peace. In many cases we will be able to act immediately."

Read more here.

Image source, PA

UKIP has confirmed it will not field any candidates across South Gloucestershire in the general election.

The party came third in all but two of the 11 constituencies in Bristol and South Gloucestershire in 2015.

The decision could affect the Conservative vote in marginal seats like the Thornbury and Yate constituency.

Tory candidate Luke Hall is defending a 1,500 majority, where UKIP won more than 5,000 votes in the previous election.

You can read more about the story here.

Emma Vardy
Daily and Sunday Politics reporter

Now even NGOs are leaking manifestos. Labour have started a trend. Anti-corruption campaigners Transparency International sneak out lines from their forthcoming manifesto which will say no backsliding on EU money laundering directives.

You're no one without a leak these days...

Martha Kearney
Presenter, The World At One

A furious blame game has erupted over where the leak came from. 

"Black, black anger" was the mood of one shadow cabinet minister. Another Labour source talked of "utter recklessness and stupidity".

The draft which was given to the Telegraph and the Mirror was only circulated among a very narrow group of people - which should make it relatively easy to identify the culprit... and there will be an internal party inquiry.

The usual question in these circumstances is cui bono - who benefits? 

One source pointed the finger at the leader's office saying it would make it easier for Corbyn's team to railroad this draft through the party meeting which is taking place today - the so-called Clause V meeting. 

But it is hard to believe that the leader's office would deliberately undermine its carefully laid out plans for a series of announcements leading up to next week's formal launch. 

And the leak gives more time for people to organise against elements in the manifesto for example fracking which is highly contentious. 

One theory is that the leak came from the unions as they were shown a draft in recent days... but I have been told that was a different draft. 

The plot thickens and will do nothing to ease the acrimony in the party.

You can also follow Martha on Twitter @Marthakearney , external