The leader of Scottish Labour Jim Murphy has pledged that the party will fight its most "passionate, energetic campaign" as it takes on the SNP in what is the "most important" general election for many years.

Some polls are predicting Labour will lose heavily to the nationalists in Scotland. But Mr Murphy said while voters could back other parties to "protest" against the Conservatives, only Labour was "big enough and strong enough" to oust David Cameron from Downing Street.

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Thousands of pounds of taxpayers money was spent on a Los Angeles bash to celebrate British Oscar nominees and business, official figures show.

Business Minister Matthew Hancock told MPs the £85,000 reception for the Great campaign, which aims to showcase what the country has to offer, was attended by about 500 guests - including more than 30 British Oscar nominees.

He added an estimated £37,000 was spent on venue hire, food and drink while security, logistics and event management cost around £48,000.

Mr Hancock said the private sector provided 35% of the funding for the event - which amounts to £29,750 - signalling £55,250 was paid for from public funds.

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Over 400 people have complained to Ofcom and Channel 4 about perceived bias against... Labour leader Ed Miliband it has emerged.

Channel 4 has admitted it has received around 300 complaints from viewers.

Broadcast regulator Ofcom says it had received 131 complaints by late morning - all of which were about perceived bias against the Labour leader.

Labour were not the only political party to launch their election campaign today.Plaid Cymru have also launched their campaigntelling Welsh voters the country's future is "in our own hands".

Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood said more Plaid MPs would ensure Wales was no longer "over-looked and marginalised".

Plaid currently has three MPs, and hopes to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament.

"Let us not place our future in the hands of the four shades of Westminster grey," Ms Wood said at the event at Ffos Las racecourse near Llanelli.

Plaid Cymru has already said it plans to negotiate as part of a bloc with the SNP and the Greens.

It's probably worth pointing out a few similarities with 1910 as it happens.

Just over a hundred years ago the UK was struggling with a different form of nationalism. On this occasion largely Irish nationalism rather than Scottish nationalism.

In both elections, in January and December 1910. Liberal leader Herbert Asquith was forced to rely on the support of the Irish nationalists to form a government.

The Conservatives also won a larger share of the popular vote in both elections. But they were forced to rely on support from the Liberal Unionists a faction of the Liberal party that had split away over the issue of home rule for Ireland.

Without the Unionists on one side and Nationalists on the other, neither party could have held sway,neck and neck as they were in terms of seats in the House of Commons.

Other disruptive elements in the elections were a growing Labour party with 40 seats- and then subsequently 42 seats - and the Independent Nationalists with 3 seats January falling to 2 seats in December.

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Good bit of election trivia from World at One this afternoon. Assuming the opinion polls are correct and the election delivers a hung parliament in May, it will be the first time since 1910 that the electorate have sent MPs back to parliament with no politiccal party in overall control twice in a row.

Admittedly, back then the reason for the hung parliament was a constitutional crisis prompted by the House of Lord's rejecting the Herbert Asquith-led Liberal government's finance bill - later known as the People's Budget.

This week I've been touring the UK looking at the issue of immigration ahead of the general election. Our last stop is Bradford – a city in the north of England with a large, predominantly Pakistani Muslim population.

It’s often portrayed in the media as a divided society where integration has failed. I visited a Muslim-run community project to find out if this is a fair characterisation.

Have a listen to what people there told me:

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Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham told the BBC's Daily Politics: "No body gave this prime minister their permission to put the National Health Service up for sale."

But pressed by presenter Andrew Neil on Labour's policy to impose a mansion tax to fund the NHS Mr Burnham struggles to answer where the money would come from the immediate years of 2015 and 2015. "The money will started flowing immediately Andrew," Mr Burnham says, adding: "Ed Balls has said that he will bring these measures in with immediate effect."

New rules which mean convicted criminals in England and Wales will have to pay up to £1,200 towards the cost of their court case have been criticised by the Magistrates' Association chairman. Richard Monkhouse said he did not think the proposals had been thought through as well as they could have been. The fees, which come in to force next month, start at £150 and are not means tested, although people will have the opportunity to pay in instalments.

Just to finish the round up Labour’s fourth and fifth pledges- both of which have been reported before - are as follows:

• Mr Miliband says immigrants to the UK will not be able to claim benefits for two years. He says Labour will call time on gang masters that exploit migrant labour, companies that don’t pay the minimum wage and recruitment companies that only advertise jobs overseas.
• Labour’s fifth pledge is on young people. Mr Miliband says he will reduce class sizes for 5,6 and,7, year olds, apprenticeships for everyone that gets the grades and reducing tuition fees.