The latest TV election debate format proposed by the broadcasters would see two debates hosted by BBC and ITV featuring the leaders of the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, UKIP, the Greens, the SNP and Plaid Cymru. David Cameron said on Breakfast a "deal could be done" if the Northern Ireland parties were included in the broadcasters' line-ups. Imagine having to chair that?

The World at One BBC Radio 4

Conservative peer Baroness Wheatcroft tells The World at One the Conservatives need to be careful about what message the party sends out. "There is only one nasty party and it's a very nasty party and it's called UKIP," she says. The Conservative Party must get its tone right and "needs to appear kind and caring and not at all nasty", she adds.

The World at One BBC Radio 4

It's worth keeping an eye on Sheffield Hallam (Nick Clegg's seat), which has a three in five chance in retaining the Lib Dem seat at the moment, Mr Hanretty adds. Labour is in second place, and has a chance of "decapitating" the Lib Dems.

The World at One BBC Radio 4

Mr Hanretty goes on to say that if the country had an election today, he would expect Labour to get 300 seats - "which is short of 326 magic number and would leave us in hung parliament territory". There are 650 seats up for grabs, which means 326 seats are needed to win an overall majority.

The World at One BBC Radio 4

Chris Hanretty, a reader in politics at the University of East Anglia and co-founder of the website election.forecast.co.uk, external, says a poll of polls suggests Labour has a "slender" - 1% or 2% - lead in the polls now, but that is well within the margin of error. Mr Hanretty says that means Labour is "comfortably" ahead on seats, because the Labour vote is more efficiently distributed between constituencies.

Alex Hunt
Politics editor, BBC News Online

On a day when we've just launched our whizziest-ever poll tracker - here's a reminder of how things have changed since 1959. Richard Dimbleby introduces Bob McKenzie who explains the "vast scoreboard" (which looks suspiciously like it's a cricket scoreboard borrowed from Lords) and then demonstrates the newest visual aid at his disposal - the swingometer, which was making its national television debut.

Each day from now until 7 May we'll be bringing you a classic election clip from the BBC archives. We've already selected a fair few but do feel free to suggest some via email at alex.hunt@bbc.co.uk or via Twitter @ialexhunt

The World at One BBC Radio 4
Presented by Martha Kearney

Ipsos Mori's Ben Page tells the programme there is no sign that any rise of anxiety over the NHS is leading to rise in votes - it doesn't seem to be cutting through to the wider public.

The World at One BBC Radio 4

Shadow care minister Liz Kendall tells the World at One that Labour's shadow health secretary Andy Burnham has been very clear that the NHS needs reforms. She says it would take a "series of complex things" and "real reform" to make the changes to social care that Labour is proposing.

Nick Triggle
Health correspondent

The problem facing the NHS is clear for all to see. Over the last 60 years the focus has shifted from curing illness, such as infectious diseases, to managing long-term illnesses, like dementia, for which there are no cures. That requires much more joined-up working in the community to keep people well, particularly supporting them in their own homes. To achieve that Labour is talking about "resetting" the NHS and creating joint budgets with England's councils, which are in charge of care services. It has echoes of what has already been done in Northern Ireland and is being rolled out in Scotland. But the challenge is that people pay for their care - many the whole bill. How that system can be combined with the free-at-the-point-of-need NHS is a major challenge.

The World at One BBC Radio 4

From BBC assistant political editor Norman Smith: The former Labour health secretary Alan Milburn has criticised Labour's focus on the NHS as a "comfort zone campaign" and warned the party was ill-prepared to carry out the necessary reforms to the NHS if elected. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's The World at One he also warned that the party risked the same fate as in the 1992 election which Labour lost. You can listen to the programme by clicking on the Live Coverage tab on this page.

Robin Brant
Political Correspondent, BBC News, in Sale

Pensioners have escaped much of the austerity measures under the coalition and David Cameron is hinting that will continue if he wins the election. Both the Liberal Democrats and Labour have said they will cut free bus passes or some winter fuel payments as the spending squeeze continues. Ed Miliband has also outlined plans for an NHS 10 year plan and thousands of new care workers to visit people in their homes. Highlighting what he said was a "creeping privatisation" of the NHS he attacked the large scale privatisation of the utility firms in the 1980s.

Image source, PA

It's been a busy week of campaigning so far - here's David Cameron and George Osborne at a cider farm in Somerset on Monday.

Daily Politics

Paddy Ashdown, who is offering his services as a voiceover artist, gets some tips from an expert, Alan Dedicoat, the voice of the National Lottery. It turns out Lord Ashdown did some voiceover work late last year after recording the audio version of his book. But he says he's not planning to do ads - "I'm not about to try and sell soap powder with my voice," he says. He then goes up against Alan - we're not experts but it was pretty clear who the professional was...

The guest of the day is Lord Ashdown, After the discussion about the NHS reforms, he is now talking about the "snooper's charter" with Lord West, who was a security minister in the last Labour government. You can watch it live on this page until 1pm, and then catch up with at your leisure - just click the Live Coverage tab.

Daily Politics
Live on BBC Two

Former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown says the coalition NHS reforms "moved too fast". "We tried to be too radical," Lord Ashdown said, adding that reforms were made faster than was "sensible". His made his comments to presenter Jo Coburn during a discussion on the NHS with Labour's Shadow Health Minister Andrew Gwynne and Conservative MP Dr Sarah Wollaston.

BBC Radio 2

Image source, PA

On election debates, Mr Cameron talks up his desire for them to take place before the campaign starts in early April. While they were "excellent" in 2010, he says they "took the life" out of the campaign and, this time around, he wants them "out of the way" before the campaign starts in earnest. The current plans are for three debates during the official campaign....

BBC Radio 2

The British public are "intensely reasonable" about the issue of immigration, Mr Cameron says. He does not regret setting a target before the last election of cutting net migration to less than 100,000 a year, as he believes this would make Britain "better and stronger". When presenter Jeremy Vine suggests that immigration and the NHS are not among the Conservatives' six main election themes, Mr Cameron says this is not the case and the broadcaster has been "badly briefed".

BBC Radio 2

Reacting to the GDP figures, Mr Cameron says the economy is "moving ahead". While the "job is not done", the prime minister says the recovery is "on the right track".

Robin Brant
Political Correspondent, BBC News, in Sale

The Conservative health secretary is "disgusting" and Labour's years in power were "glorious" said one questioner; this was not a tough crowd. Ed Miliband spoke about "creeping privatisation" in the NHS as he outlined Labour's ten year plan to rescue, as he put it, a "precious" health service. Then he went further. He appeared to attack privatisation overall. He said legislation under the coalition made the model for NHS reform the privatisation of utilities in the 1980s; saying "we kind of know where that got us don't we?" He may have meant the electricity providers, firms that he has repeatedly attacked, but he wasn't specific. So he appeared to be condemning what's happened at British Airways, BT and a host of others firms. And for the record he told me he doesn't use private healthcare and has never used private healthcare.

Image source, (C) British Broadcasting Corporation

The BBC's economy tracker looks at GDP figures since the 1990s.