Gordon Brown was recorded describing Gillian Duffy as a 'bigoted woman'. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA
3.54pm: Here's Brown's full statement:
I've just been talking to Gillian. I'm mortified by what's happened. I've given her my sincere apologies. I misunderstood what she said and she has accepted there was a misundestanding and has accepted my apology. If you like I'm a repentant sinner. Sometimes you say things you don't mean to say, sometimes you say things by mistake and sometimes you say things you want to correct it very quickly . So I wanted to come here and say that I made a mistake but to also to say I understood the concerns she was bringing to me and I simply misunderstood some of the words she used. I made my apology. I've come here. It's been a chance to talk to Gillian about her family, her relatives, and her own history and what she has done but most of all it's been a chance to apologise and say sorry, and to say sometimes you do make mistakes and you use the wrong words and once you've used the wrong word and made a mistake you should withdraw it and say profound apologies and that's what I've done.
Will this draw a line under the affair?
3.45pm: A smiling Brown came out sans Mrs Duffy. He said he had misunderstood what she had told him earlier today and was "mortified" at what he had said.
3.42pm: Everyone: the door has opened. This is live blogging at its best. More follows.
3.39pm: The Financial Times' Jim Pickard recalls a private conversation which went very public when Nick Clegg was discussing party matters on a flight with his chief of staff Danny Alexander.
My colleague Haroon Siddique recalls some of the other senior political figures who forgot they were still carrying a microphone.
3.27pm: Mrs Duffy is a Sky News fan, according to journalist Niall Patterson. Which is just as well since the broadcaster has been filming the outside of her home for quite some time now.
Men in suits are hanging around outside like expectant fathers. It's either going really well in Mrs Duffy's front room, or really badly. I bet it's the former. An apology goes a long way to mend hurt feelings.
3.21pm: Alex Smith on Labourlist is trying to move forward.
For activists who are fighting hard in this campaign, we cannot allow this to demotivate us: in a Channel 4 poll just taken, 70% of respondents said such a comment will not make them less likely to vote Labour.
And where I'm fighting, in Islington, and all around the country, there are bigger things at stake than worrying too much about one personality or a comment Brown should never have made. Those are the issues - housing, the economy, jobs - that this election was always going to be about.
3.12pm:
Just found out: in 1997 Blair only used microphones from Labour party: to avoid Major-style "bastards" moment.
This tweet from Fraser Nelson is obviously of limited use to Brown now, since he's learned the lesson the hard way.
3.04pm: Poor Mrs Duffy. She has quite a few journalists, aides and security staff hanging outside her Rochdale home. Brown has gone indoors to have another chat with her.
2.53pm: Nick Clegg was being quizzed earlier about Brown's gaffe. The Lib Dem leader said it wasn't "right" to have said what he did and that it's important to treat people's questions with the respect they deserve. Of course it is, but as Mandelson pointed out, we are all human. It's now up to Clegg to make sure no similar mishap befalls him as the tiredness sets in during the remaining days of the election campaign.
2.50pm: Hello, it's Hélène Mulholland here. Policy appears to have swerved off the news agenda since Brown made the unfortunate error of having a private word on a very public piece of technology. Sky is reporting that Gordon Brown is on his way to see Mrs Duffy in person to apologise.
2.44pm: If anyone can "spin" Gordon Brown out of this one, it will be Lord Mandelson. In an interview on BBC News, he's just had a go.
Mandelson's explanation was that Brown said something he did not believe in the heat of the moment and that he is now "mortified" by the offence he caused. Here are the key extracts.
I know, having spoken to him, that [Brown] feels mortified by the hurt caused to [Duffy] and that's why he telephoned her straight away and gave his personal apology to her ...
When you are on the campaign trail in this way you have encounters of this kind. You sometimes have difficult conversations. Individuals quite rightly express their point of view very strongly when they meet somebody coming from any of the parties.
And afterwards you leave the conversation and you may say something in the heat of the moment that you should not do but, more importantly, that you don't believe. Gordon Brown does not believe what he said about her. But he said it because people do sometimes say things on the rebound from a conversation like that. That's what makes him a human being, as well as a politician.
Mandelson was asked if Brown understood the impact the story might have. He replied:
What concerns him chiefly is what Mrs Duffy feels. That's why he's spoken to her and that's why he's apologised to her.
Mandelson also claimed that Brown felt "frustrated" because people did not fully understand the way the government's immigration policy was working.
At the end of the interview Mandelson repeated the point about Brown not believing what he said. "It is not something be believes. He does not believe it publicly or privately."
This prompted the interviewer to ask if Brown often said things he did not believe. At that point Mandelson turned distinctly frosty and said he had already addressed the point.
As spin goes, it was a brave effort. But I'm not sure it will do the trick.
2.16pm: Gillian Duffy used to be a Labour voter. She has a postal vote in her house, but told reporters after the "bigot" incident that she would not be voting Labour in this election.
Now Nigel Farage is suggesting she should vote Ukip. Farage has issued this statement:
All the old parties feel the same way about Mrs Duffy's concerns over eastern European migration to the UK. Maybe only Brown is so unpleasant in making his point clear. They all hold us in contempt.
Only Ukip is attempting to address the issue of immigration from eastern Europe, while the others cannot as they are all wedded to the EU controlling our borders, thus leaving the UK powerless to deal with the problem.
2.06pm: Here is some reaction to bigot-gate from the web and Twitter.
Benedict Brogan, on his Telegraph blog, says it could kill off Gordon Brown.
In minutes, this has turned into the most damaging off-mike remark in modern politics. It might finish off Mr Brown altogether. He's just insulted a 66-year-old widow without cause. And she's a Labour supporter.
The contrast between him patting her on her back and praising her for being from a 'good family' and trashing her in the privacy of his Jaguar will horrify the Labour party, never mind the electorate.
To judge by the foaming frenzy of the TV networks, this will help to depress the Labour vote even further.
Nick Robinson, on BBC News:
For those of us that have known Gordon Brown for many years, what we have just seen is no huge surprise, I have to say.
Tim Montgomerie, the editor of ConservativeHome, on Twitter:
This is devastating for Brown. Tory politicians mustn't say too much about #BigotGate. Let press/bloggers bury Brown's electoral chances.
James Forsyth, at Coffee House, says the Lib Dems could be damaged by this too.
I suspect Nick Clegg will also suffer some collateral damage as it will push immigration to the top of the political agenda – an area where the Lib Dems, with their plan for an amnesty for illegal immigrants, are on the wrong side of public opinion.
Tory Rascal has already turned it into a poster on the Tory Rascal blog:
It's difficult to predict how this will play out, but I think it could well be the moment that turns floating voters off Labour completely.
Lance Price, at Cif at the polls, says the episode is a disaster for Brown.
Brown looked devastated by what had happened, as well he might, but he seemed to want to blame the broadcasters for airing his words and said he was sorry "if I've said anything like that".
There's no "if" about it. The full-blown TV apology when it comes, as it must, will have to be personal, direct and unambiguous.
Hopi Sen, on his blog, says there is something positive about hearing what politicians really think.
The truth is, we know politicians must sometimes hate the more vociferous members of the public they meet. We know that election campaigns are chaotic, mistake-ridden, fly by the seat of your pants operations. So maybe we should be pleased when the masks slip a little bit.
1.45pm: This is what Nick Clegg has said about bigot-gate.
You should always try to answer the questions as best you can ... [Brown] has been recorded saying what he has said and will have to answer for that.
And this is what Alistair Darling said about the incident on the World at One.
He has apologised, that apology is profuse and I think he is well aware of the fact that he shouldn't have said this. I know the lady concerned is upset for understandable reasons, but the prime minister has apologised ... Gordon is a man of considerable strengths and considerable resilience and of considerable substance ... He has apologised for it but I think and I hope people will judge him in the round ... We need to move on because there are other big, big issues that need to be discussed and I just hope the lady concerned will accept Gordon's apology.
1.42pm: This is what Brown's spokesman has been saying about the incident:
Gordon has apologised to Mrs Duffy personally by phone. He does not think that she is bigoted. He was letting off steam in the car after a difficult conversation.
But this is exactly the sort of conversation that is important in an election campaign and which he will continue to have with voters.
1.35pm: To ask the question they love posing on the BBC and Sky, "how damaging" is this to Brown and Labour?
It's too early to know, but here are some initial thoughts.
1) These incidents are often not as damaging as they look. John Prescott was worried that his career was over after he punched a voter in 2001. But now he seems to regard that as something to be proud of. He referred to it in the title of his autobiography, and jokes about it frequently.
2) No one was ever likely to vote for Gordon Brown because they thought he was a ray of sunshine. But ...
3) There are probably millions of women like Gillian Duffy who vote Labour, worry about immigration and don't want to hear themselves described as "bigoted".
4) Honesty is an issue in this election, and we've just seen Brown say something about a woman in private that he was not willing to say to her in public. Personally, I think that's understandable – we've all been polite to people we do not particularly like.
But when Brown was first confronted about what he had said, his first instinct was to suggest that he had not actually made the remark (see 12.48pm and 12.59pm).
Brown's opponents are telling voters that the PM, and Labour, are not telling the public the truth about the economy. This exchange may make it easier for some people to believe that.
5) Labour has a problem with immigration. As polls like this one show, the Tories are way ahead on the issue. Until now, it has not been an issue in the campaign at a national level – but it could become one. Duffy asked Brown about eastern Europeans, but in private he suggested she was being racist.
6) Until Brown got into his car with the microphone on, the economy – potentially a good issue for Labour – was the key issue of the day. Now it has been knocked off the top of the news agenda. At the very least, Labour has lost a day.
1.32pm: Here's a recording of Brown being confronted about the incident on the Jeremy Vine show.
1.24pm: Here's a recording of Gordon Brown's comments about Gillian Duffy:
It seems Brown was quite frustrated by the encounter.
1.16pm: This is what Gillian Duffy said to Brown about immigration in their encounter on the streets:
You can't say anything about immigrants ... All these eastern Europeans – where are they coming from?
Brown said one million people had come from Europe but another million Britons had moved the other way.
1.11pm: Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, the SNP has lost its legal action at the court of session in Edinburgh today over its exclusion from the final prime ministerial debate on the BBC.
Back to bigot-gate in a moment ...
1.10pm: The BBC is reporting that Brown has phoned Gillian Duffy to apologise.
1.10pm: Stewart Wood has been in touch to say he was not the Labour aide in the car with Brown, as the BBC suggested earlier.
1.02pm: Here, from the Press Association, is some more reaction from Gillian Duffy.
Duffy said she was "very disappointed" with Mr Brown's remarks.
After hearing what the prime minister had said about her, she said it was "very upsetting".
"He's an educated person, why has he come out with words like that?" she said.
"He's supposed to lead this country and he's calling an ordinary woman who's just come up and asked questions what most people would ask him – he's not doing anything about the national debt and it's going to be tax, tax, tax for another 20 years to get out of this mess – and he's calling me a bigot."
She said she would not now be voting in the general election.
Pressed on whether she still wanted Mr Brown in No 10, she said: "I'm not bothered whether he does or not now. I don't think he will."
She urged the PM to go out among the public and "find out what's going on in our lives".
She said she had not planned to speak to Mr Brown, but saw him "walking up the street" and thought she would ask him what he would do about the national debt."I thought he was understanding – but he wasn't, was he, the way he's come out with the comments ..."
Duffy, who has a daughter and two grandchildren, told reporters she used to work with handicapped children for Rochdale council before she retired.
Her husband, who was a painter and decorator, died of cancer four years ago.
12.59pm: Here are the full quotes from the Radio 2 inteview. Vine asked Brown if it was true that he had described someone as a "bigoted woman".
Brown: I apologise if I have said anything like that. What I think she was raising with me was an issue of immigration and saying that there were too many people from eastern Europe in the country. I do apologise if I have said anything that has been hurtful, and I will apologise to her personally.
Vine then played the tape.
Vine: That is what she said. Is she not allowed to express her views?
Brown: Of course she's allowed to express a view, and I was saying that. The problem was that I was dealing with a question that she raised about immigration and I was not given a chance to answer it because we had a whole milieu of press around.
Of course I apologise if I have said anything that has been offensive, and I would never put myself in a position where I would want to say anything like that about a woman I met. It was a question about immigration that really I think was annoying.
Vine: You're blaming a member of staff there.
Brown: I'm blaming myself. I blame myself for what is done. You've got to remember that this was me being helpful to the broadcasters with my microphone on, rushing into the car because I had to get to another appointment.
They have chosen to play my private conversation with the person who was in the car with me. I know these things can happen. I apologise profusely to the woman concerned. I think it was just the view that she expressed that I was worried about that I could not respond to.
12.56pm: Channel 4 news have footage of the incident:
12.48pm: Jeremy Vine has just asked about the remark. Brown says:
I apologise if I've said anything like that.
Vine then plays the tape, which shows he did say that. Brown says:
Of course I apologise if I said anything offensive ... I blame myself for what has been done ... You've got to remember this is me being helpful to the broadcasters ... I apologise profusely to the lady concerned ...
He says he was referring to her remarks about immigration.
Vine moves on to another question. But BBC News are now showing footage of Brown in the Radio 2 studio. He looks utterly wretched.
12.44pm:
12.41pm: Duffy told reporters Brown should apologise. But she said she did not want an apology in person, suggesting she had had enough of Brown for one day.
12.39pm: BBC News has just played the clip of Brown's remarks. He said:
That was a disaster – they should never have put me with that woman. Whose idea was that? It's just ridiculous ...
Someone on the tape – it's not clear who – says "Sue" was to blame. Brown is then asked what was wrong. He replies:
Everything, she was just a bigoted woman.
12.37pm: Duffy says she thought Brown was "understanding" when she met him. But having heard what she said about her afterwards, she thinks she was wrong.
She liked Tony Blair, she says. Before today, she thought Brown did "very good things for the country" when he was chancellor. But now things are "going to pot".
12.34pm: Gillian Duffy, the woman who spoke to Brown, is on BBC News now.
She says she is "very upset" about his remark. She says that he is an educated man and that he wants to lead the country.
12.32pm: Here's what they are saying about the encounter on Twitter:
From my colleague Polly Curtis: Brown's "bigoted" woman is a Labour supporter who said he seemed like a "very nice man".
From Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Bizarre thing is that he handles the encounter rather well ... it wouldn't have been a story – until he got in the car and slagged her off.
From ITV's Lucy Manning: Full brown quote in car 'that was a disaster. Should never have put me with that woman .. . Whose idea was that'
12.28pm: Here's what happened. Brown was in Rochdale doing a television interview about the deficit. As he was speaking, a woman called Gillian Duffy, a 65-year-old Labour voter, heckled him about the subject.
He engaged her in conversation and they had a rather awkward chat that was filmed live on TV. It was a bit excruciating – mainly because she seemed to be criticising him for everything – but eventually she said local schools were getting better.
Brown tried to joke about her wearing the right colour, red, but that did not seem to go down well. He was still trying to speak to her as she was walking away. That was all I saw. It struck me as a fairly typical "politician meets grumpy voters" moment.
But Brown then got into his car, still wearing the television microphone. Apparently, he was recorded saying that the encounter had been a disaster and that she was a "bigoted woman". Short of doing a Prescott and punching someone, that's about as bad as it gets.
Brown is on Radio 2 now. The "bigoted woman" remark has not been mentioned yet. But he sounds extraordinarily tetchy.
12.18pm: Big story – Gordon Brown has been caught on a microphone describing someone he met on the campaign trail as a "bigoted woman". So the meeting real people strategy has not been a success ...
I'll file more on this in a moment.
11.49am: Alistair Darling is delivering his economy speech now. It's not on the Labour website yet, but I've just received a copy of the text and I'm about to look at it properly. It does contain a very a laboured joke.
And before he recanted, Vince Cable also claimed that using the Bank of England to support our economy belonged to the "Robert Mugabe school of economics". We know he's a nifty mover. But facing both ways at once is hard for even the best dancer. I was already facing Boy George. I now had to contend with Karma Chameleon as well.
I hope the rest of it gets better. I'm about to find out.
11.46am: For reference, here are the figures from the three overnight polls.
Conservatives: 33% (no change from YouGov 24 hours earlier)
Labour: 29% (up 1)
Lib Dems: 28% (down 1)
Conservative lead: 4 points (no exchange)
Lab to Con swing: 3.5% (compared to 2005 general election result)
ComRes for ITV and the Independent
Conservatives: 33% (up 1 compared to ComRes 24 hours earlier)
Labour: 29% (up 1)
Lib Dems: 29% (down 2)
Conservative lead: 4 points (up 3)
Lab to Con swing: 3.5% (compared to 2005 general election result)
Conservatives: 36% (up 4, compared to Populus last week)
Lib Dems: 28% (down 3)
Labour: 27% (down 1)
Conservative lead: 8 points (up 7)
Lab to Con swing: 5.5% (compard to 2005 general election result)
11.44am: Brown is going to be on Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show at 12pm, I've just been told.
11.42am: My colleague Polly Curtis has been with Gordon Brown in Oldham this morning. She's sent me this.
Sparky exchanges at the Honeywell community centre in Oldham. Sabrina Brennan, 19 and a mill worker from Oldham, live on TV, asked Brown: "You mentioned before about we should take control back on crime and crooks. But it's come to my attention there are a lot of criminals and crooks in parliament lately. Are you going to put them on the DNA register?"
Brown said: "Not one of them should stand at this election and not one of them should be elected."
Brennan wasn't letting it go. "Are you going to make sure of that?" she pushed him. He confirmed he would - and that he was angered by MPs' expenses. He is now making an unscheduled stop after being collared by a hairdresser and asked to visit her salon. There are 100 people standing outside a hairdressers on Ashton Road, Oldham, waiting to see whether she fulfills her promise to give him a trim.
11.24am:Here's a mid-morning summary.
• Labour and the Tories have clashed in their response to the Greek debt crisis. Labour have rejected suggestions that Britain is in the same position as Greece. David Miliband said it was "economic illiteracy" to compare Britain and Greece. Lord Mandelson said much the same. But David Cameron said that the other two parties were in favour of Britain joining the euro and that that if Britain was in the euro British taxpayers would be bailing out the Greeks. "If we were in the euro right now, all of your taxes, all of your national insurance, some of that would be being taken to bail out Greece," Cameron said. "I'm the one in this election with a very clear policy on this. As long as I'm the prime minister, I will not join the euro." (See 8.20am and 9.59am)
• Gordon Brown has accused the Tories of not supporting the extension of CCTV. The prime minister made his comments after Labour fielded Katie Piper, the victim of an acid attack, to talk about the importance of CCTV at a Labour press conference. The Tories claimed the criticisms were unfair. (See 9.59am and 11am)
• A union leader has predicted widespread strike action after the election. "Junk status, key services ripped to shreds and workers on the streets. Greece today - UK after 6 May," said Bob Crow. (See 10.54am)
• Three overnight polls continue to show the Tories in the lead. All three show the Lib Dem share of the vote falling. There are more details at UK Polling Report, but I'll post the full figures myself soon.
• Lord Mandelson has insisted that Labour does have a detailed plan for growth. He was responding to criticisms levelled by the Institute for Fiscal Studies yesterday. (See 9.15am)
• Chris Huhne has said there was nothing hypocritical about Nick Clegg making a profit from the sale of a Brussels home he lived in when he was receiving an EU accommodation allowance. (See 8am)
11.03am: On the subject of CCTV, I missed a wonderful quote that Alan Johnson came out with at the Labour press conference. Thanks to PoliticsHome, here it is.
There's a real sense with the Conservatives that in this 'big society' we just all walk around holding hands and walk into the sea singing Hare Krishna, and that's the way to tackle these problems, versus what the police want.
11.00am: There's a pattern to the Labour campaign. Lord Mandelson and assorted ministers deliver a message at a London press conference. And then a few hours later Gordon Brown says much the same thing at a campaign event in a key seat, like an emissary from London. Yesterday he was in Scotland warning about the Tory threat to families. And this morning he's been in Oldham, talking about CCTV.
Where CCTV is in your area we can detect crime. But be in no doubt that the Conservative and Liberal parties are against the extension of CCTV that we have delivered in this country. The Conservatives and Liberals are against the extension of CCTV and even some of the CCTV we already have in this country.
10.54am: Bob Crow, the leader of the Rail Maritime and Transport union, has been reading the IFS reports too. He is predicting widespread strikes after the election.
At last the truth is out and the election has shifted to the £50bn cuts legacy from the bankers' bailout which the politicians are lining up in secret for the UK's public services. There is no question that there will be widespread strike action as workers in health, education, transport, the fire service and across the whole spectrum of public services fight back against the full force of the attacks which will be unleashed after polling day. If you want a snapshot of what we are facing take a look at what's happening in Athens today. Junk status, key services ripped to shreds and workers on the streets. Greece today - UK after 6 May.
10.50am: At the Wakefield event Cameron was asked about the report in the Financial Times saying that he was exploring the possibility of doing a deal with the Scottish and Welsh nationalists. Cameron did not reply to the question directly, but he insisted that he would not do anything to break up the UK.
Be clear. If you cut me in half, I am a believer in the United Kingdom. It's tatooed on me like a stick of rock. I would never do anything to endanger the family that is the United Kingdom.
Last night Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minster, addressed this issue on Newsnight. As my colleague Paul Owen wrote on this blog last night, Salmond said the the SNP and Plaid Cymru – who have banded together somewhat at this election – would not go into coalition with Labour or the Conservatives in the event of a hung parliament at Westminster. But he stood up for coalition government – he runs a minority administration in Edinburgh – calling it "a very cooperative process" and mentioning policies he has got through the Holyrood parliament by working with Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems on different occasions.
10.39am: David Cameron is in Ed Balls' consituency (Morley and Outwood), doing a Q&A with workers at the Wakefield Coca-Cola plant. He has just made his own assessment of the Greek debt crisis. He said that if he had not been for the Tories opposing entry into the euro, British taxpayers would now be spending money bailing out Greece. A journalist asked if he was looking forward to a "Portillo moment" on election night (ie, a future party leader, Ed Balls, losing his seat, like Michael Portillo in 1997). Cameron said it was up to the voters. That seems a wise answer. Morley and Outwood is 197th on the Tory target list. The Conservatives would need a 10.47% swing to win here. As Oliver Burkeman writes in the Guardian today, the bookies expect Balls to win.
10.32am: Vincent Cable is speaking at an Institute of Directors conference in London. The Lib Dems are excited about the prospect of a hung parliament. But the IoD isn't. Its director general, Miles Templeman, told the conference earlier:
While political parties agree that the deficit is a problem, there is little agreement on how it should be tackled. So it doesn't surprise me that so many business leaders are worried about a hung parliament.
According to the IoD, 70% of its members are very concerned about the prospects of a hung parliament.
10.31am: Gordon Brown gave an interview to Radio Scotland this morning. He used it to attack the SNP for wanting to give up Trident.
I would like to see an end to nuclear weapons, I would like to see nuclear weapons cut, but you can't do it by Britain just giving up its nuclear deterrent, giving up Trident. Then you find that Iran has its nuclear weapon and then you find that North Korea has its nuclear weapon and then you find that other countries in the Arab world start to say that they must have their nuclear weapon as well. What sense does it make for Britain to give up its nuclear deterrent, which is the policy of some parties, while at the same time Iran and North Korea are gaining theirs? I think people would think it was ludicrous.
10.11am: On the subject of CCTV, my colleague Alan Travis points out that the latest Home Office evaluation found that CCTV only has a modest impact on crime levels. Here's an extract from the story Alan wrote about this last year.
The review of 44 research studies on CCTV schemes by the Campbell Collaboration found that they do have a modest impact on crime overall but are at their most effective in cutting vehicle crime in car parks, especially when used alongside improved lighting and the introduction of security guards.
The authors, who include Cambridge University criminologist, David Farrington, say while their results lend support for the continued use of CCTV, schemes should be far more narrowly targeted at reducing vehicle crime in car parks.
Results from a 2007 study in Cambridge which looked at the impact of 30 cameras in the city centre showed that they had no effect on crime but led to an increase in the reporting of assault, robbery and other violent crimes to the police.
9.59am: The Labour press conference is over. Here are the main points.
• Lord Mandelson insisted that what is happening in Greece will not happen in Britain. "To liken Britain to Greece is frankly ridiculous," the business secretary said. He explained at length why, although Britain has a budget deficit that is comparable to Greece's, the two economies are fundamentally different. (See 9.15am). But he accepted that the situation in the eurozone illustrated why the recovery in Britain was fragile. "We are coming out of a financial and economic hurricane, but we are not clear of it yet," he said. Mandelson said this showed why it would be wrong to elect an inexperienced government. (Earlier I suggested that all parties would be thinking about how they could turn the the Greek debt crisis to their advantage. Mandelson has just provided the Labour answer: stress Brown's experience.)
• Mandelson insisted that Labour was the only party with a detailed plan for growth. In a detailed response to the criticisms made by the IFS yesterday, he insisted that Labour did have a plan for dealing with the deficit. (See 9.15am)
• Labour attacked the Conservatives for not supporting CCTV. Katie Piper, an acid attack victim, appeared at the press conference to talk about the value of CCTV in ensuring that her attackers were convicted. Alan Johnson, the home secretary, said the Tories and the Liberal Democrats were opposed to the greater use of CCTV cameras on the basis of it forming part of a "surveillance society". This provoked an angry reaction from the Tories. Fiona Cunningham, a Conservative party press officer, put this out on Twitter.
Johnson said DC recently criticised CCTV in a speech. Where? DC not mentioned CCTV in speech since 10 Jan 08. then it was positive
When challenged about this, Johnson said that Cameron had supported David Davis in his byelection campaign and that Davis had made opposition to CCTV a key part of his platform.
• Mandelson renewed his attack on Nick Clegg. He called him "arrogant" and portrayed him as vain and indecisive. (See 9.21am)
9.37am: My colleague Haroon Siddique has sent me some more information about Katie Piper, who spoke at the Labour press conference (see 8.53am).
A former model and budding television presenter, Piper was 24 when, in 2008, she had sulphuric acid thrown over her face. The acid destroyed all the skin on Katie's face, neck and hands, and left her blind in one eye.
Her attacker, Stefan Sylvestre, was brought to justice with the help of CCTV footage. Sylvestre was acting on the orders of Danny Lynch who dated Piper after contacting her on Facebook but then became jealous and violent. A few days before the acid attack Lynch had raped her. Piper spent seven weeks in the burns unit at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital after the acid attack.
She wears a special plastic pressure mask for 23 hours a day, in an effort to flatten her scars and her ability to eat and drink is restricted. She waived her right to anonymity for a Channel 4 documentary, My Beautiful Face, and delivered Channel 4's alternative Christmas message last year. Lynch was given two life sentences, one for rape and one for inciting the acid attack, and was ordered to serve at least sixteen years in jail. Sylvestre received a 12-year sentence, with a minimum of six years behind bars.
9.21am: At the press conference, Mandelson was asked about the prospect of Labour doing a deal with Nick Clegg after the election. Labour politicians have been taking pot shots at Clegg for the last week now, but Mandelson's contribution this morning was about the most withering I've heard.
To be honest, I don't think Nick Clegg knows whether he's coming or going. He says different things day to day. One moment he's talking to the man in the moon and saying he would be happy to go into a coalition with him. The next day he's ruling out other leaders and parties. Frankly, it is arrogant for him to lay down conditions for a post-election before a single vote has been cast.
Incidentally, Mandelson is wrong about not a single vote being cast. Some people have voted by post already.
9.15am: This press conference is supposed to be about crime and antisocial behaviour, but it quickly turned into a seminar on the economy and the Greek debt crisis. Mandelson faced three hostile questions on this. He had three main points to make.
Mandelson insisted that Britain is not in the same position as Greece. "Greece is not Britain. Britain is not Greece," he said. Mandeslon said that in Britain debt as a proportion of GDP is 54%. In Greece it is between 115% and 120%. The Greek economy is in recession; the British economy is growing. And in Greece around 30% of the economy is a black economy, from which the government gets no tax revenue.
Referring to the claims made by the IFS yesterday, Mandelson insisted that Labour has a detailed plan for growth. Economic growth would contribute to reducing the defict by raising £20bn, he said. The government would raise taxes by £19bn, Mandelson said. And there will be "tough choices" on spending. The financial climate will be "much tighter" than before. Savings worth £38bn will be found, he said.
Mandelson also insisted that the government was right not to hold a spending review this year. (The IFS suggested this was a mistake.) He said:
If we had carried out a comprehensive spending review last year, we would have got our forecast for spending on unemployment benefit wrong by £15bn over the next five years ... That's why the time for the spending review is not now.
And, finally, Mandelson said that the situation in Greece illustrated why the economic recovery was "fragile", and why Britain needed experienced leadership.
8.53am: At the press conference Alan Johnson attacks the Tories for opposing the extension of CCTV. And he introduces Katie Piper, the victim of an acid attack, to talk about CCTV. Piper delivers a short speech in which she says:
Without CCTV my attackers could well have walked free .. Thanks in part to CCTV I am now able to rebuild my life.
John Denham follows Piper. He says the Lib Dems have opposed government measures to crack down on antisocial behaviour.
8.46am: The Labour press conferences is starting. Lord Mandelson says the Tories are so out of touch with life in modern Britain that they issued a document recently claiming that 50% of teenagers were getting pregnant in certain areas.
Alan Johnson, the home secretary, says David Cameron renewed his claim yesterday that society is broken. That is not true, Johnson says. The Tories are also claiming that violent crime is going up. But that is also wrong. The murder rate in London is the lowest since people were wearing "flares and tank tops" in 1978.
Johnson accuses the Tories of offering "statistical mendacity and trite homilies".
(Yesterday Left Foot Forward published a blogpost criticising the Tory crime claims in more detail.)
8.35am: I've had a quick look at the papers. Here are five articles I would recommend.
• The Financial Times says the Tories are "exploring the possibility of a deal with unionist politicians in Northern Ireland and Scottish and Welsh nationalist MPs in the event of a hung parliament, in an attempt to avoid giving in to Liberal Democrat demands for electoral reform".
• And the FT says George Osborne "has failed to win over the City's top bankers, with the vast majority of senior financial services executives preferring the incumbent, Alistair Darling," according to a survey of more than two dozen senior bankers. "What that survey revealed was a widespread sense of unease about Mr Osborne's inexperience and what is seen as a tendency to "make up policy on the hoof", in the words of one senior banker."
• John Lloyd in the FT says televised leaders' debates do not help voters make rational choices. "To put politicians before a live audience whose members ask questions is to invite them to flatter – and in the UK leaders' debates we have seen plenty of that."
• Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian says the election represents the best chance of change for a generation. "It is, I know, a paradox that the best chance of realising Lib Dem dreams is for Labour to do well next week. But that is the insane reality of our system. It's back, one last time, to those 1997 tactics."
• Peter Riddell in the Times reports on a poll showing the Tories "within striking distance of being able to form a viable government".
8.25am: In his Today interview, David Miliband also dismissed the idea that Nick Clegg could force Labour to replace Gordon Brown as leader in a hung parliament. The Labour party chooses its own leader, he said.
8.20am: David Miliband is on the Today programme talking about the Greek debt crisis. He has just accused David Cameron of "economic illiteracy". He said Cameron was wrong to compare the UK to Greece, because debt in Greece is twice as high as in the UK.
8.00am: Chris Huhne, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman, has been on Sky this morning defending Nick Clegg. As the Guardian reports, the Eurosceptic thinktank Open Europe has accused Clegg of hypocrisy because he made a proft from the sale of a Brussels home that he lived in when he was receiving an accommodation allowance from the European parliament. According to PoliticsHome, Huhne said:
When it comes to the European parliament, there is no equivalent to the Westminster second home allowance. I was a member of the European parliament as well, you don't have a taxpayer funded second home, you are able to spend it on a hotel, whatever else .... What Nick has said when it comes to second home allowance here at Westminster, where he does use that to pay for his home in Sheffield, is you pay the taxpayer back any capital gains that arise from that ... I don't think there is a story or any hypocrisy.
7.56am: Here are some of the items on the agenda today.
8.30am: Labour press conference, with Lord Mandelson, Alan Johnson and John Denham
11am: Alistair Darling speech on the economy
1.30pm: Nick Clegg Q&A with students in Edinburgh
2.15pm: Andy Burnham, Andrew Lansley and Norman Lamb in Daily Politics health debate on BBC 2
6pm: Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg address Operation Black Vote rally in London
6.56am: If the Greek debt crisis suddenly gets a lot worse, will that help Labour, the Liberal Democrats or the Conservatives? It's not a particularly tasteful question. But with the BBC news this morning dominated by talk of a jittery bond market, the euro on the slide and the FTSE on the way down, I'm pretty sure that's what they will be wondering at the campaign meetings this morning.
The papers still seem to be dominated by the Institute for Fiscal Studies reports that were out yesterday. In the Guardian, Patrick Wintour and Larry Elliott report that the IFS has accused "all three main parties ‑ and particularly Labour ‑ for failing to come clean over the scale of tax rises, welfare cuts and spending retrenchment necessary after the election."
In an attack on the "vague" plans sketched out by Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, the Institute for Fiscal Studies also claimed the Tories were planning the sharpest spending cuts since the second world war, while the Labour and Lib Dem spending slowdowns amounted to the biggest retrenchment since the IMF crisis in the mid-1970s.The IFS said that no party had gone "anywhere near identifying" the cuts they will need to meet their various deficit reduction timetables.
The attack leaves all three parties with awkward questions to answer ahead of tomorrow's televised leaders debate, focused on the economy. In a damning assessment the IFS says: "Repairing the public finances will be the defining domestic policy task of the next government. For the voters to be able to make an informed choice in this election, the parties need to explain clearly how they would go about achieving it. Unfortunately they have not. The opposition parties have not set out their fiscal targets clearly, and all three are particularly vague on their plans for public spending. The blame for that lies primarily with government for refusing to hold a spending review before the election."
The Times says:
The next government must raise more in taxes and implement deeper welfare cuts than any of the three main parties admit, according to an influential think-tank.
And the message from the Daily Telegraph is much the same:
The average family already faces tax rises of more than £500 a year in the face of the £1 trillion deficit. But, according to the IFS, Labour will need to increase taxes by another £7 billion a year under its economic plan and the Conservatives will need to raise taxes by about £3 billion.
Today we'll be hearing more on the economy. Alistair Darling, the chancellor, is addressing the subject in a speech in Edinburgh. George Osborne, his Tory opposite number, is launching an initiative on banks. There is no early Lib Dem press conference, but Lord Mandelson, Alan Johnson and John Denham will be holding one at 8.30 to talk about Labour's plans for communities.
I'm heading into Westminster now. I'll post again at some point after 7.30.
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