Although the format of recent pre-election debates and interviews has varied, the expectation of party leaders taking part in some form of televised ding-dong seems pretty fixed.

But it was a long road to get here - with Harold Wilson the thrusting, 40-something Labour leader in 1964 who challenged the Old Etonian Tory prime minister Sir Alec Douglas Home to an election debate.

Sir Alec turned Wilson down saying: "I'm not particularly attracted by confrontations of personality. If we aren't careful you know you'll get a sort of Top of the Pops contest.

"You'll then get the best actor as leader of the country and the actor will be prompted by a scriptwriter."

Wilson himself privately admitted: "I was none too keen on the debates. Some small thing might have gone wrong. I might have got hiccups from smoking a dusty pipe."

Read the rest of the story by Michael Cockerell.

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A crowd has gathered and applauds the Labour leader as he arrives in Cambridge.

The polls covered in the BBC tracker are standard voting intention polls. That is, they try to gauge levels of support for each of the parties across the country. They do not attempt to say how many seats each party would win.

There's a good reason for that.

The first-past-the-post electoral system means that there is no straightforward relationship between votes and seats won.

The 2017 election could be almost a repeat of the 2015 result in terms of vote share but produce a very different outcome in terms of the number of MPs returned for each party.

Clearly, though, people are interested in knowing how votes might translate into seats.

So YouGov , externalhave attempted to model how that could work. Their projection of a hung parliament has, understandably, caused a stir.

Read more.

Image source, Getty Images

UKIP leader Paul Nuttall arrives in Cambridge ahead of tonight's 90-minute debate.

There was also a seven-way debate back in 2015 - the cast was a little different: Green leader Natalie Bennett, UKIP's Nigel Farage, Lib Dem Nick Clegg, Labour's Ed Miliband, Conservative David Cameron, the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon and Plaid Cymru's Leanne Wood.

You can relive some of the highlights here:

A new tradition began in 2010 with the three-way prime ministerial debate between then Conservative leader David Cameron, Lib Dem Nick Clegg and Labour incumbent Gordon Brown.

BBC political editor at the time Nick Robinson wrote:

He noted that it saw Nick Clegg emerge "as a serious player" and the question was whether he could convert that into increased support for his party.

"The dynamic between David Cameron and Gordon Brown, their personalities and their policies did not fundamentally change as a result of this debate, but there is now a third unpredictable factor at play."

The party is standing in 10 seats across the country.

The Financial Times has announced it is backing the Conservatives (£), external in the general election, but says "neither of the main party leaders is particularly impressive".

The newspaper also called out a lack of clarity from both sides on Brexit, saying it was "deeply unsatisfactory".

In its leader column, it says "far from being strong and stable, Theresa May has looked "curiously brittle" and criticised her plans on the markets and immigration.

But the newspaper concludes Mrs May is a "safer bet" than Mr Corbyn.

In 2015, the paper backed the continuation of the Tories and Liberal Democrats coalition government.

Jeremy Corbyn has "pulled off a political ambush" by taking part in tonight's debate, the BBC's deputy political editor says.

Speaking outside the debate hall in Cambridge, John Pienaar says Mr Corbynmade Theresa May "look conspicuous by her absence" by his last minute confirmation of his appearance on Wednesday.

"Jeremy Corbyn, in this debate, will start off trying to make Theresa May look scared, running scared and a bit of a chicken. He will want to convey, that is willing to engage and get stuck in," he said.

"Whether he pulls that off depends on the debate to come, because a number of those leaders on the platform will be out to stop him."

Home Secretary Amber Rudd, who will represent the Conservatives, has it as her "mission in life to confound and frustrate the Labour leader," he says.

The World at One
BBC Radio 4

With the election just a week away and there are signs that opinion polls are narrowing.

Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator magazine, believes the prime minister's style of leadership and fallout from the social care U-turn have caused tensions within the party's campaign.

He told he World at One, that the magazine's latest front cover, published on 3rd of June, reflects the party's internal turmoil, with an image of a panicked looking Theresa May under the headline 'General Shambles'.

Image source, Reuters

Research examined news stories shared by UK users in the run up to the general election.

The SNP's leader at Westminster, Angus Robertson, will be aiming to focus on public sector spending cuts during tonight's debate, according to party colleague Kirsty Blackman.

Ms Blackman told the BBC that her party's most important message was that they would "stand up against Tory austerity".

Asked about the possibility of a hung Parliament and coalition, she said: "We will support progressive policies across the UK."

Ms Blackman dismissed Labour's challenge in Scotland. In her view, the choice in Scotland was between the SNP and the Conservatives.

Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry tells the BBC: "The reason Jeremy is on this debate tonight is he hopes to gets to all different types of people and they get a chance to see who he really is."

She contrasts this to "nonsense" spoken about his personality by Conservatives.