Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson was met by a one-man protest as she arrived for campaign stop-off in Cambridge ahead of the party's manifesto launch.

A protester shouted "120,000 deaths under austerity propped up by the Liberal Democrats".

Some 20 Lib Dem activists tried to drown the demonstrator out by chanting "stop Brexit now".

BBC Look East's political correspondent Ben Schofield tweets...

Joe Tidy
Digital elections reporter

When it was first noticed that the Conservatives had rebranded their twitter account to ‘factcheckuk’, users were incredulous. But the response soon turned to satire.

Writer Charlie Brooker followed suit by changing his account name and tweeted his own "fact".

Image source, Twitter

Others too rebranded their accounts to post their own alternative facts:

Image source, Twitter

One of the first to kick off the trend was journalist Hussein Kesvani. His tweet was even retweeted by the CCHQ Press account that caused all the controversy.

Image source, Twitter

This perhaps highlights that the Conservative party social media team are happy to court controversy in this election and don’t see action like this on Twitter as something that will put voters off. We'll see if they are right in a few weeks' time.

Image source, EPA

Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman Tom Brake says the Conservative Party press office's "factcheckUK" move is "straight out of Donald Trump or Putin's playbook".

He commented: "Not content with excluding the voice of Remain from this debate, the Tories are now resorting to deliberately misleading the public.

"People know they can't trust a word that Boris Johnson or the Conservatives say."

Here's Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on BBC Breakfast this morning.

Responding to criticism over the Conservative Party rebranding one of its Twitter accounts to "factcheckUK", he said: "No-one gives a toss about social media cut and thrust."

[See our post at 08.04am for more details.]

Image source, UK Parliament

A senior DUP politician has said he believes his party will continue to "have leverage" over the Conservative Party following the election.

Lagan Valley candidate Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said he is "not convinced" that Boris Johnson's Tories will be returned with a "huge majority" - and that will give his party "leverage".

Speaking as part of a panel of representatives from the five main political parties in Northern Ireland who were invited to address business leaders, Sir Jeffrey spoke of his hopes for a resumption of devolved government in the region.

"I am not convinced Boris Johnson is going to come back with a huge majority and I think that gives us leverage," he said.

"Whilst we can go to Westminster and we can do what we do, I believe it is ultimately much more powerful if there is a collective voice from Northern Ireland saying what we need."

After the 2017 election, the DUP supported the Conservative government in a "confidence and supply" deal. However, they oppose Boris Johnson's revised Brexit agreement with the EU.

Amol Rajan
Media editor

Twitter is a minority interest. Journalists are over-represented on this platform compared to other social media, creating a profound danger that they misinterpret what happens on Twitter as representative of the wider world.

Nevertheless, an important threshold has now been repeatedly breached by Britain's party of government, and Twitter is the site where it happened.

It is perhaps arguable that, like the doctored video of Sir Keir Starmer a fortnight ago, the rebranding of Conservative Campaign HQ's account as a fact-checking service falls into the broad category known as satire.

But that is a stretch. The effect will have been to dupe many unknowing members of the public, who genuinely thought it was a fact-checking service when it gave opinions on Jeremy Corbyn.

This is not to patronise voters, who are wise. Rather, it is to recognise that, in a world of information overload, what cuts through are stunts.

Which is why, ironically, in CCHQ this morning there will be younger staff who chalk this up as a victory.

Journalists thus face a dilemma: call out disinformation, and you play to the worst of social media, distracting from questions of policy; but ignore it, and the truth recedes ever further from view.

Image source, PA Media

The Conservatives are making a series of pledges on law and order today, this time focusing on increasing the support available to crime victims.

The party says it will provide an extra £10m next year for prosecution services and police teams handling rape cases, with more money also available for those offering support to rape victims.

Since 2010-11, the Crown Prosecution Service has had its budget cut by roughly 30% in real terms - a total of about £225m.

As part of a planned review, the party has also committed to opening up parole hearings so victims and journalists can apply to attend.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Earlier on Today, SNP MSP Humza Yousaf said he believes that Jeremy Corbyn, should he end up in Downing Street after 12 December, may yet shift his position to allow a second referendum on Scottish independence.

Mr Corbyn has previously rule out a second independence referendum in the "early years" of a Labour government.

But Mr Yousaf said: "Jeremy Corbyn's position has shifted a number of times already in what is a relatively short campaign. I expect what he says now will not be necessarily what he says when he needs the keys to number 10.

Pushed on whether he believes there will be room for manoeuvre to get a second Scottish independence referendum after the election, Mr Yousaf said: "I think Nicola Sturgeon put it pretty clearly at our conference speech - don't bother picking up the phone if you're not going to talk about a second independence referendum, and that is a clear marker for us."

Asked whether he believes Mr Corbyn will pick up the phone, he continued: "Without a doubt, because if Jeremy Corbyn wants to put forward the rest of his programme for government, his Queen's Speech, his budget, [then] he - by current polls certainly - will need a number of partners to help him do that.

"The SNP as things stand are the third largest party in the United Kingdom. We are going to be the kingmakers, potentially."

ITV had the first crack at the political debates last night. Don't worry - the BBC will have its go soon (you can find out all the dates here).

And now ITV bosses - who neatly scheduled it in the hour before I'm A Celebrity - have revealed exactly how many people tuned in.

Throughout the full hour, there was an average audience of 6.72m viewers (*)

But the peak came towards the end with 7m tuned in from 8.50-8:55pm.

Those viewers who only tuned in at that point, would have seen the moment the debate turned to a series of quickfire questions on climate change, which foreign leader the two men most admired and what they would get each other for Christmas.

Mr Corbyn said he would get Mr Johnson a copy of "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, while Mr Johnson said he give the Labour leader a copy of his Brexit deal.

Viewers would have also seen both men's closing statements. The PM got the last word, having drawn the right to that privilege before the show started.

* TV viewing figures nerds will know that these are what are known as "overnight figures", so don't include people who watched on catch-up services.

Turning away from the "factcheckUK" row - there has been discussion over other aspects of the ITV leaders' debate this morning.

Labour candidate for Brent Central Dawn Butler appeared on BBC Breakfast, where she discussed Boris Johnson's comments on the monarchy during the show.

Asked if the monarchy was "fit for purpose", Boris Johnson said: "The institution of the monarchy is beyond reproach".

This came after the Duke of York's interview with BBC Newsnight's Emily Maitlis over his relationship with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

"What an insult that is to the victims," Ms Butler said of Mr Johnson's response.

BBC News Channel

Here's the BBC's political correspondent Nick Eardley quite literally out on the campaign trail - talking to camera while on a campaign bus near Leeds ahead of Boris Johnson's visit to north-east England today.

Commenting on the controversy over "factcheckUK", our correspondent says the question is "how long the row lasts".

He says: "Opposition parties have been really scathing about what the Tories did last night.

"The Conservative's argument is that you could clearly see it was the Tory Party, but actually if you were flicking through Twitter last night it did look like it was supposed to be an independent fact-checking service, which it was not.

"What really sticks out in clips from last night in terms of Boris Johnson was the audience laughing when he talked about trust. I wonder if this feeds into the debate and if we might hear a bit more from opposition parties about that throughout the day."

Amid much talk about various political opponents reporting the Conservatives to the Electoral Commission over the factcheckUK row, the commission itself has issued a statement.

It reads: "Voters are entitled to transparency and integrity from campaigners in the lead up to an election, so they have the information they need to decide for themselves how to vote.

"The Electoral Commission seeks to deliver transparency to the public through the political finance rules.

"While we do not have a role in regulating election campaign content, we repeat our call to all campaigners to undertake their vital role responsibly and to support campaigning transparency.”

Dave Lee
North America technology reporter

They’re not happy to say the least.

They put out a statement about what the Tory party has done with that account saying that it was "misleading" and that it wouldn’t be tolerated in future.

Twitter’s pretty clear about this kind of thing, it has a policy about pretending or implying that you're something you’re not..

This is a company that’s had to battle this kind of technique, of changing the identity of an account, as something foreign governments would do to interfere in elections. So to see it come from a political party has really angered Twitter.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

The chief executive of independent fact-checking charity Full Fact says he is in no doubt that the Conservative Party rebranding a Twitter account to "factcheckUK" was "an attempt to mislead voters".

He told the Today programme: "I think it is inappropriate and misleading for a serious political party to behave that way.

"And it's surprising as well. Why would a self-respecting political party choose to impersonate something else to put its campaign messages out there?"

He went on to suggest that Twitter "could have forcibly renamed the account".

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Image source, UK Parliament

Discussing the row over the Conservative Press Twitter account being rebranded to look like a fact-checking service during last night's leaders debate, Lib Dem Layla Moran said that she "absolutely" believed people had mistaken the account for a neutral fact-checker.

She said: "It’s so easy, Twitter is a fast moving, you’re looking at your feed, you tend to be scrolling quickly. You tend to look at the name rather than scrutinise the Twitter handle.

"I think Twitter should have stopped the account, I blocked them, I reported and blocked them as soon as I saw it and absolutely this needs to be reported to the Electoral Commission."

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Speaking about last night's ITV debate, Dominic Raab is also asked about the audience's reaction to some of Boris Johnson's claims - and specifically their laughter at the prime minister.

Mr Raab says: "What really matters is not within the audience in that particular studio but in the millions across the country that are listening to all of the questions.

"They found two to one, according to a YouGov poll, that Boris Johnson was more prime ministerial."

[You can view that poll here., external It also shows that Jeremy Corbyn was perceived to be more trustworthy.]

Mr Raab says: "There were all sorts of attributes and facets but overall on the exam question in this campaign - 'who is more prime ministerial' - Boris Johnson won by two to one.

"That's what matters because we've got a credible plan on Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn nine times couldn't answer whether he was for or against leaving the EU."

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Mr Raab is asked whether he accepts that the Conservatives did something wrong by temporarily rebranding its press office Twitter account.

Mr Raab says: "We will always abide by the rules with these things and - if there is advice coming out - look at it carefully.

"The handle of the Twitter account was very clearly linked to the Conservative Party, but we will make no apology for having an instant rebuttal to all the nonsense and lies coming out.

"We'll look at the advice from Twitter but we will make no apology for having an instant rebuttal."

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is now on Today and he is asked three times whether the Tories will repeat their tactic of renaming their press office Twitter account 'factcheckUK' during the other election debates.

After being pressed for an answer, he points out that he is not in charge of the party's social media.

The Liberal Democrats say a £50bn economic "bonus" from their plan to remain in the EU will fund their public spending and Layla Moran says: "We know that by stopping Brexit there will be an uptick to our economy, there is no independent forecaster that doesn’t suggest that that’s true."

However, when pressed on Today, Ms Moran admits that the pledge was a "prediction" of the economic benefits of remaining in the EU and was not a guaranteed amount of money.

She said "It’s a prediction based on a range of economic forecasts, it’s a conservative estimate. All we can do, as with any economic forecast, is use independent, verifiable numbers."