It's been another busy day in politics with perhaps a bit more agreement between the parties than is often the case, plus the first of what is likely to become a succession of Westminster farewells

• Foreign secretary Philip Hammond defended Britain's security forces and said that "apologists" for terrorists were partly to blame for resulting violence. He also warned of Russia's "aggressive behaviour"

• 90% of the 120,000 troubled families targeted by the government have "had their lives turned around", according to communities secretary Eric Pickles. Labour said it would continue the programme, if elected in May

• Relatives of the three London schoolgirls believed to have gone to Syria to join Islamic State told MPs that if a letter from police had come direct to the families they might have been able to stop the girls going. Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, said he was "sorry" the letter had not got through

• MPs will vote tomorrow on plans to introduced standardised packaging for cigarettes. The government and opposition back the plan but some Conservative backbenchers are opposed

• Labour leader Ed Miliband's wife Justine gave her first TV interview to the BBC. She said she was expecting the election campaign to get "really vicious" but that she was "up for the fight"

• And Gordon Brown made what may be his final speech in the Commons. Calling for Britain to play a leading role in Europe, the former prime minister said leaving would be a "betrayal of our history and future"

The BBC has seen a letter from senior Conservative MP Sir Alan Duncan to Margaret Hodge, accusing her of "inappropriate grandstanding" and being "nothing short of vile" in her questioning of BBC Trust chairman Rona Fairhead in the public accounts committee session this week.

Sir Alan, a former international development minister, calls on Mrs Hodge to apologise to both Ms Fairhead and Stuart Gulliver, the chief executive of HSBC.

He also writes that many professional people are "in despair" at the "cheap haranguing which characterise your manner as chair of the PAC".

Tweets, external: Three Tory poll leads in a row with @YouGov (1, 4 and 2 tonight). Looks like a genuine shift.

Former Chancellor Ken Clarke has also entered the debate on defence spending, telling the BBC it does not matter if budgets slips below the 2% Nato target for one year. He told Newsnight the UK was committed to meeting the target but ministers could not "hand the money out" without some flexibility as this would be a recipe for waste in procurement and equipment programmes. The current murmurings from former generals were exactly what you would expect in the run-up to the election, he adds.

Ken Clarke has told Newsnight that: "No budget before an election has actually made a difference to an election outcome in living memory."

The former chancellor went on to say his advice to George Osborne when he delivers his budget would be to give the impression of a steady hand on the tiller rather than any giveaways, saying: "The public are not silly, they're not going to expect you to shower them with money."

Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin has responded to warnings about the implications of defence cuts to Britain's place on the world stage. Asked by Evan Davis on Newsnight what Britain's world role should be, he said: "The answer is 'we can therefore we must.'

"There are very, very few countries with the influence and reach that we have. There are very few countries with the extent of interests that we have."

He went on: "If we vacate this place on the world stage, the question is, who will fill it? Who will fill that vacuum that we leave?"

General Sir Peter Wall has warned that further defence cuts would mean that, by 2020 the army will be less resilient.

The former chief of the general staff told Newsnight: "It [the armed forces] will either get hollowed out and become less resilient, or be cut, or a bit of both, depending on the scale of any reductions. Probably compounded by things like what defence inflation turns out to be."

tweets:, external YouGov/Sun poll tonight - Tories ahead by two: CON 33%, LAB 31%, LD 8%, UKIP 15%, GRN 6%

Tweets, external: Sorry Ed. It seems I knocked your "I'm a human" piece down the news agenda.