The latest news from the UK hustings
Party leaders trade swipes
As the British election campaign enters its final days, the mood on the campaign trail has become increasingly acrimonious, with party leaders trading ever more vicious barbs. Yesterday Gordon Brown likened Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg to a TV gameshow host and described the Tory manifesto as a “horror show”.
David Cameron said the Labour leader was now a “shrunken” figure who resorts to “desperate smears and hysterical scares”. Nick Clegg said the potshots levelled at him by his rivals were making him “incredibly angry”.
Labour loses vote of Rochdale woman
The Rochdale woman who found herself at the centre of a media storm after Gordon Brown called her “bigoted” last week says she will not vote for Labour or any other party.
Gillian Duffy, a lifelong Labour supporter, said she felt sorry for Brown after he made the unguarded remark shortly after she had confronted him on issues including immigration. Ms Duffy said she accepted Brown’s apology but declined his invitation to shake hands for the cameras. She told him: “I’m sorry for you, Gordon, because you have more to lose than me.”
Clegg says he is a Beckett fan
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg says Samuel Beckett is his hero. Writing in the Guardian, Clegg described his first encounter with Beckett's work when he acted in a student production of Krapp's Last Tape. "Since then I must have read Waiting for Godota hundred times," he said.
“It’s that willingness to question the things the rest of us take for granted that I admire most about Beckett; the courage to ask questions that are dangerous because, if the traditions and meanings we hold so dear turn out to be false, what do we do then?”