Frantic campaigning on the final full day, with an apparently confident Labour nevertheless continuing the "Don't risk a Tory government" line.

All three parties, in fact, seem to be more concerned with why voters shouldn't vote for the other two than being positive about their own ambitions.

Amid rumblings of discontent within their party, the latest poll in The Times shows the Conservatives in a "worse position than before their record defeats in 1997 and 2001".

The Populus poll has the Tories on 27 per cent, with Labour on 41 per cent and the Lib Dems up 2 points on 23 per cent, their highest level of the campaign.

Yet, here's something to think about. It may just be that - like in the 1992 election, when no-one polled would own up to intending to vote Tory - this time around no-one will admit to voting for either the Conservatives or Labour. If that's the case, then the Lib Dems support might be artificially high.

Elsewhere in The Times, meanwhile, Simon Jenkins, says that if Labour wins, it will represent a "seventh victory in a row for Margaret Thatcher."

Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, continuing his guest slot for The Guardian, praises the prime minister's final morning press conference.

The Sky News "interest index" hasn't been in positive territory once, but deep down, has it really all been that boring?

With an estimated 6.5m postal votes expected to be cast, the shadow cast by potential fraud is potentially a long one; another arrest this morning probably does nothing to make anyone feel better.

Forty-eight hours to go. The widow of the 87th and latest British serviceman to be killed in Iraq ensures that the issue stays in the spotlight by directly blaming Tony Blair for her husband's death.

Coming in the wake of the move by several other bereaved families to take legal action against the prime minister, both stories are set to keep Iraq on the front burner.

With the final Mori poll of the campaign for the FT showing Labour with a comfortable lead, Mr Blair himself has returned to his theme of heading off a Lib Dem protest vote, saying:

"There are three ways to get a Tory MP. One is to vote Tory, one is to stay home, one is to vote Liberal Democrat. Take nothing for granted. Unless people come out and vote Labour, it is a Tory government they will wake up to on May 6."

The message dovetailing nicely there, with Labour's latest poster campaign showing a sleeping Michael Howard, ready to wake on May 6th ready to wreak who-knows-what kind of havoc....

The Tory leader, meanwhile, sidestepped both Labour's continuing poll lead, and what seems to be the growing dissatisfaction within Tory ranks over his leadership.

And how do voters know they can trust him? Because he ordered the party battlebus off the road on finding out that it's tax disc was out of date.

But you have to wonder if he'd trade a few thousand of his majority for a last-minute penalty here later...

Bookies Ladbrokes reports that, despite Labour still being 1/33 to win the most seats, (and Liverpool 15/8 to beat Chelsea) it has taken a £10,000 bet on the Tories to win the election at 10/1.

The appeal ruling in the Birmingham postal vote fraud case is expected today, while there's always these guys or these guys.

Finally, for tonight's distractions, this is pretty good, as is this, I guess (but be careful where you open it).

Once again, the war took centre stage in the campaign as a British serviceman was killed in Iraq, and the continuing fallout from the various leaked documents relating to the government's conduct.

With Labour stepping up its rhetoric over the need for its traditional supporters to turn out (the latest poster says "If one in 10 Labour voters don't vote, the Tories win"), and that a vote for the Lib Dems is the same as voting Conservative, the scene seems set for an increasingly desperate, personal round of back-and-forth over the final three days.

Charles Kennedy introduced former Labour supporter Greg Dyke - the ex-Director General of the BBC - at the Lib Dems' morning presser, pointing to the fact that the Iraq war had cost Dyke his job, while the prime minister carried on regardless.

According to, appropriately, the BBC, Mr Dyke said it was now clear that Mr Blair and his Downing Street staff "did the same to the legal advice on the war in Iraq as they did to the intelligence".

He also compared the Blair administration to the Nixon White House.

Someone else drawing transatlantic comparisons is Markos Moulitsas, who writes the popular Daily Kos blog in the US. Guest blogging for The Guardian , he looks at some similarities and differences between campaigning in the two systems. (They like flags a lot more. Everyone likes U2)

Meanwhile, the prime minister, it seems, has won at least one hard-fought diplomatic endorsement.

If the folks at strategicvoter.org.uk get their way, he will eventually wind up with plenty of time to explore the lucrative delights of the international lecture circuit.