Image source, @Nigel_Farage

Tweets, external: As you can see, I was very happy to officially declare #UKIP's Aylesbury campaign office open today! @philyerby

James Landale
Deputy Political Editor, BBC News

The top civil servant at the Treasury has warned staff that he will not hesitate to call in the police if any of them leak details from the Budget, according to the BBC's deputy political editor James Landale, read his full article here. For those that don't know the budget is set to be announced on Wednesday 18 March.

Daily Politics
Live on BBC Two

The last budget before the general election will be held on Wednesday and some polls show growing optimism about the economy and the government handling of it.

Watch the Daily Politics film where Adam Fleming took the mood box - an unscientific test with plastic balls - to Richmond-upon-Thames.

He asked what the public made of the choice between Chancellor George Osborne and the man who wants his job, Ed Balls.

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A former Labour candidate who was caught up in a vote-rigging row two years ago has applied to be the party's candidate in the marginal seat of Halifax in West Yorkshire. Karie Murphy says she has been contacted by a "significant" number of party members in the constituency, where the sitting MP, Linda Riordan, is standing down. Ms Murphy backed out of standing for selection as Labour's candidate in Falkirk in 2013 over allegations that the Unite union tried to manipulate the selection process in her favour. The union and Ms Murphy were both subsequently cleared of any wrong-doing. The incident however led Labour leader Ed Miliband to announce reforms to the party's links with unions.

Ed Miliband has been talking about having two kitchens in his London home - which has caused a bit of a stir - saying he only uses the small one. Speaking to the Birmingham Mail, external, he said: "The house we bought had a kitchen downstairs when we bought it," he said. "And it is not the one we use. We use the small one upstairs."

tweets, external: That big Lib Dem housing announcement Clegg says Tories stopped - Boris is already doing it , external

Nick Clegg has said people trying to get on the first rung of the housing ladder are in an unfair situation: "We've got a terrible crisis, and it's so unfair - the number of young people who simply can't get their feet on the first rung of the property ladder. We have to do something big, and bold, and different. So what the Liberal Democrats are announcing today is a new rent-to-own scheme, so when you start renting, maybe new flats.. you also, every time you pay rent, you get a stake in your property."

tweets, external: Al Murray circus in Sandwich this afternoon suggests campaign no longer anti-Farage/Ukip. Beside jokes, all about getting people to vote

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has told the Evening Standard, external that history and the UK electorate will be on his party's side. "I think the history books will judge us very kindly," said Mr Clegg. "And I also happen to think the voters will judge us kindly on 7 May because we did the right thing for the country." In a recent BBC poll of polls, Labour had 34% of the vote, the Conservatives were on 33%, UKIP had 14%, while the Liberal Democrats remain fourth on 8%. The Greens had 6%.

tweets, external: PM today attended #AfghanService @StPaulsLondon to mark 13 years of UK campaign in Afghanistan

Image source, Twitter

Ed Miliband has said pictures of his family home broadcast on the BBC earlier this week were filmed in one of his two kitchens. The layout of the home in north London has caused quite a stir after Sarah Vine wrote in the Daily Mail, external that the room, above, was "bland, functional, humourless, cold and about as much fun to live in as a Communist era housing block in Minsk."

According to the English Housing Survey, the Labour leader's home is one of 146,000 in England with second kitchens. That's 0.7% of all homes in the country. One of them belongs to the prime minister. In 2011, the Daily Telegraph reported, external David Cameron had installed a second kitchen in his flat above Downing Street.

Image source, Getty Images

Nick Clegg has been talking about the TV debates again today. He has urged to Conservatives to "stop faffing" over the issue. The Lib Dem leader says: "Honestly my head is spinning with all the proposals and counter proposals, and the insults and the counter insults. I just wish we'd get on with it and I think all this ducking and weaving, particularly from the Conservatives, I think it's a bit arrogant really to say they can't be bothered to lower themselves to everyone else's level and have a proper debate. It's not David Cameron's debate, it's the British people's debates and we should get on with it. Stop faffing!"

BBC Radio 4

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Dr Pippa Malmgren is up next on Wato talking about US-UK relations. Asked why the US is annoyed at UK involvement in the new Chinese development bank, she says the broader context - the military disputes and China's forming of its own answer to Nato - make the US a bit "paranoid" over the expansion of Chinese reach. This is a further step in that expansion, she says.

China is saying the World Bank and the IMF are possibly not serving their interests and wants to create something of its own. "Nobody likes new competition", but it happens all the time, Dr Malmgren adds.

She concedes that slapping the UK on the wrists is unusual - it could be because this move took them by surprise, she says.

BBC Radio 4

The World at One has been discussing the emerging row between the UK and US over Britain's effort to become a founding member of a Chinese-backed bank that could rival the likes of the World Bank.

Sir Christopher Hum, the former UK ambassador to China, says the country feels existing global financial institutions are Western created and dominated and now it is setting up institutions of its own. There is a good argument for saying it will compliment the existing financial architecture, he says.

China has a record of "some laxness" in how it allocates funding and the best way to deal with that is being on the inside of an organisation. There are potentially direct benefits for British industry from the UK's involvement, he concludes.

Some praise for the Lib Dems' new housing initiative - from a social enterprise organisation which says it came up with the "rent-to-own" idea itself. The Gentoo Group says the Lib Dem approach is modelled on its Genie scheme, which launched in 2011 and is about to become available in London. Peter Walls, chief executive of Gentoo Group, says: "I am delighted that the Liberal Democrats have recognised our innovation and are aiming to make this scheme scalable across the UK. A now-proven concept, Genie has already unlocked homeownership for many that were excluded."

BBC Radio 4

By the end, the UK was acting as a brigade under the wider US operation, Dr Mike Martin says. The US owned national policy and the UK had "absolutely no way" of changing policies.

BBC Radio 4

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Dr Mike Martin, who served for two years in Afghanistan, tells the World at One the choice of Helmand as the base for UK operations was "probably the worse choice we could have made" because of British action there in the 1800s. He says people there remembered British imperial actions and that stories had been passed down through the generations. The British, he argues, failed to redeem their reputation during the recent conflict.

BBC Radio 4 Today

BBC business correspondent Simon Jack has been to the fishing town of Brixham in Devon as part of Today's 100 days series. The programme is visiting 100 seats around the UK in the run up to the election. Local residents in Brixham told him about a down turn as shops and bars on local high streets have closed down. You can listen to his package here.

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Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson and Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie have admitted trying cannabis in their youth, during a debate at Glasgow University's Queen Margaret Union.

Jim Murphy - the Scottish Labour leader - also said "sniffing glue out of crisp pokes" was a "working class thing to do" in the Glasgow estate where he grew up - but that he cannot remember if he tried it.

The leaders were commenting on research by the Institute for Social and Economic Research which said up to £900m a year could be raised through taxation of a regulated cannabis market, and were asked if they had tried the drug.

Ms Sturgeon said: "I'm actually on record as making an admission on this once, probably, possibly at this university although not at this union, but it made me awfully sick."

Ms Davidson said: "I went to Buckhaven High School, what do you think? I'm with Nicola, once or twice and it made me feel really sick."

Mr Rennie said: "Yes, in my youthful days."