Image source, PA

Speaking after cabinet, Nick Clegg was asked the inevitable question about whether he'd rule out a third term himself. "I'd very happily settle for two terms as prime minister, speaking personally. And for whatever David Cameron said, that's entirely up to him, of course, to say. I'm not going to get into running commentary on other people's comments about their own future."

House of Commons
Parliament

It's nearly time for the last Tuesday of the 2014/15 Parliament to get underway. Here's a run-down of what we've got to look forward to:

• Nick Clegg faces his final deputy prime minister's questions before the election

• There'll be an urgent question on the Rural Payments Agency

• Defence Secretary Michael Fallon updates MPs on reinforcements to the Falkland Islands

• Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude gives a statement on cybersecurity

• Then the Commons is spending much of the afternoon finishing off legislation like the Recall of MPs Bill and the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

• While over on the committee corridor Chancellor George Osborne will face the Treasury select committee for a grilling on the 2015 Budget

tweets:, external According to @EricPickles this ale handed out to mark last Cabinet of Coalition. Last day of being on friendly terms?

Image source, Sophy Ridge

tweets:, external Cameron gave Cabinet a beer called Co-ale-ition. Combines oak (Conservatives) and "Zesty lemons" LibDems. Clegg provided Yorkshire crisps

Ed Balls isn't keen on the Conservatives getting political capital out of today's zero inflation figure. "It shows you how out of touch David Cameron and George Osborne are now and how desperate to try and tell people they're working people that they're trying to claim the fall in the world oil price is somehow the result of what's happened here… it's obviously nonsense." Wages are stagnant and bills are going up faster than people's earnings, the shadow chancellor says.

tweets:, external Tory MP (and potential leadership challenger) just described to me Cameron's third term gaffe in these terms: 'Casual arrogance'

Here's some more of your comments on David Cameron's third term announcement - a little more critical of the PM over the last hour.

Government ministers can deny it all campaign long if they wish, but Cameron's revelation has dealt a mortal blow to his leadership. Lose the election - he has to go. Win the election but fail to renegotiate with the EU - he has to go. Renegotiate, but lose a referendum - he has to go. Even in the unlikely event he manages all 3 - he's going anyway!

Graeme McDonald

I know why David Cameron made his 'third term' comment. He's managed to keep all the headlines and news feeds away from discussing the damning revelations from last night's Channel 4 Dispatches program.

David Sutherland

Excellent PR stunt from David Cameron. Just before election put the idea in the electorate's mind that he's already won it. Genius.

Tom Jolly

tweets:, external Leading Lib Dem expert Dave Cutts: prob win 25-30 seats, over 30 good, 5-6% of vote, local work of Kennedy era gone, lots of 4th/5th places

tweets:, external Not picking holes in Labour's new poster... but the chain is broken on the left side. Suggests VAT will fall. No?

tweets:, external Excellent announcement by @edballsmp on no VAT increase under Labour. The Tory VAT hike in 2010 was a hammer blow to our High Streets.

A short time ago Ed Balls touched on the prime minister's future. "In his spectacularly self-indulgent, presumptuous and arrogant announcement, David Cameron is ruling out a third term before he has even won a second term. But he won't rule out raising VAT," he said. "We may not now know who the Tory leader would be at the next election, but one thing we do know for sure - the Tories will ‎raise VAT if they win this one."

"As an economist I've never seen anyone boast that zero inflation is a sign of economic success," Ed Balls says scathingly. That is, of course what both the Conservatives and Lib Dems have done this morning. More on the inflation figures.

Image source, Labour

This is Labour's latest election poster. It forms the backdrop - literally - for Ed Balls' speech.

Ed Balls is asked whether he'll raise another tax, rather than VAT, if Labour get into power. He says that's what the Tories will say, but all the promises he's made are funded: "Labour's sums add up."

"They even tried to put VAT on pasties and caravans" says the shadow chancellor. That draws an audible rumble from the assembled audience. "VAT has always been the Tory tax of choice."

Ed Balls outlines some of Labour's plans - abolishing what he calls the bedroom tax, increasing free early years provision from 15 to 25 hours a week, introducing a mansion tax - all of these, he insists, are "fully costed". He then moves on to repeat the message of his last big speech - that the only way the Conservatives can meet their "extreme" cuts targets is by raising VAT and slashing the NHS. "Every Tory prime minister has raised VAT," says Ed Balls.

BBC News Channel

No Labour government has ever raised the main rate of VAT, the shadow chancellor says. And he adds: "The next Labour government will not raise VAT. We will not extend it to food, children's clothes or public transport, ether." He adds: "I would resign rather than break that promise."

tweets:, external John Humphrys summed it up on #today: how on earth can Cameron serve a full-term AND have his successor installed for the 2020 election?

Ed Balls now up and running with his speech in Birmingham on VAT. Watch live by clicking above. He says VAT hits everyone, for many pensioners it's the biggest tax they pay.

BBC Radio 4

Asked whether VAT on women's sanitary products should be abolished, she replies: "This is simply a tax on being female and is utterly unacceptable. There should no VAT, it's absolutely ridiculous."

Ms Bennett concludes the interview by saying that the Green Party manifesto will be out in "early April", the exact date hasn't been decided yet.