Isabel Hardman

So all the manifestos are now out for voters to pore over. Given the amount of fuss the parties have made about these documents, you’d think they might outsell Fifty Shades of Grey. Sadly the reality is that these verbose tomes are less bonkbuster and more borebuster: they’re not written for voters to read, only for sad politicos who are paid to pore over them for fine details. They are getting longer and longer as the years go on, yet politicians don’t seem to be doing a better job at impressing voters, or indeed winning elections. The Tory 2015 manifesto has 82 pages and 34,000 words, up from 28,000 in 2010. Nick Clegg may end up with only 30 MPs after the election, but he inflicted 157 pages of promises and 36,000 words on the electorate.

Most politicians are having a miserable election, but not so Nicola Sturgeon. Her party is terrifying Labour in Scotland, she has put in very strong performances in the TV debates, and whoever is in government in Westminster from May will face trouble from Sturgeon. The forecasters now put the SNP on course to win between 40 and 50 of Scotland's 59 seats; Scotland is on the cusp of the sharpest change of political direction in her democratic history. But in order to sustain that momentum to polling day, Sturgeon needs to reassure nervous former 'no' voters who are considering voting SNP in order to exert the sort of left-wing pressure on Labour that Sturgeon promises.

On the subject of politicians using language effectively, the funniest quote of today has to go to Green leader Natalie Bennett, who told the World at One today that: 'On occasion when I need to shift large quantities of goods around, I use the car club.

One of the Ukip manifesto pledges that's making certain types a bit grumpy today is a pledge to abolish the Department for Energy and Climate Change. Unite has said that this ‘beyond barmy and would create chaos’. Unite is a union and is naturally keen to support the jobs of those who work for DECC and in industries covered by the department. But this particular Ukip policy might be one that a party of government ends up adopting. Nigel Farage’s party’s manifesto said today that DECC should be abolished because its ‘essential powers and functions can be merged into other departments’.

The Conservatives have sent out a campaign email from David Cameron this evening promoting their key manifesto pledges. You'd expect that: now's the time to galvanise activists' support. But there is one line in there that jars: 'Everyone earning the Minimum Wage lifted out of income tax altogether.' This isn't true. Cameron was quite careful in his speech today to say that the Tories will make sure 'no-one on the Minimum Wage who works 30 hours a week pays any income tax on their wages'. If you're working 40 hours a week on minimum wage pay, you will continue to pay income tax. So when the email says ‘no one’, it only means those who work part-time on the minimum wage (which the government defines as 30 or fewer hours per week).

Ed Miliband gave a good, forceful, well-received speech at Labour’s manifesto launch this morning. It couldn’t have been anything else, given how close we are to polling day. There were some very well-delivered moments, particularly when it came to zero hours contracts and non-doms. The peroration was particularly energetic, with the Labour leader saying: ‘Over the last four and a half years, I have been tested. It is right that I have been. Tested for the privilege of leading this country. I am ready. Ready to put an end to the tired old idea that as long as we look after the rich and powerful we will all be OK. Ready to put into practice the truth that it is only when working people succeed, that Britain succeeds.

Towards the end of last week, the Tories were looking a bit miserable. Their slow response to Labour’s non-coms announcement, coupled with a ‘dead cat’ response from Michael Fallon which made the party look rattled and unpleasant had left the Conservative campaign looking unusually disorganised and slow-witted. But ministers have tried to pick things up, and some of their announcements in particular have left Labour in a similar mess. The story that David Cameron’s party will meet the £8bn demand for health funding from NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens has left Labour hopping around looking a bit cross and awkward.

With every policy launch during an election campaign, it is worth asking why a party has chosen that policy and why it is launching it on that particular day. This is generally because answering those questions helps you work out what message a party is trying to send and whether they are on the defensive or offensive. But today it is worth asking this question simply because it would be nice to get an answer: why have the Tories launched two completely unconnected policies which don’t sound very Toryish on the same day? One of these policies is the freezing of rail fares, which begs the question, why did the Tories expend so much energy criticising Ed Miliband’s energy price freeze?

Tony Blair gave a speech at Labour HQ this afternoon, I understand, which rather puts paid to the claim that he was doing the very minimum required of the former Prime Minister to help his party. I hear from those present that it was a very upbeat address, in which Blair told Labourites he was optimistic about the party's chances in this election. He also reflected on his speech on Tuesday in which he warned of the dangers of a European referendum and described his party's outlook as a progressive internationalist one.

Nigel Farage is in Great Grimsby today, campaigning with Ukip candidate Victoria Ayling. The last Ashcroft poll focusing on Great Grimsby put Ukip behind Labour by one point, and that was in December 2014. Farage started his day at the docks before visiting a local fish market, to highlight the problems that the European Union's fisheries policies have caused in towns like Grimsby. But one of the questions is whether Farage can afford to be spending time away from South Thanet when his chances there are on a knife edge. Ukip has one safe seat, and that's Douglas Carswell's. Farage has to win his seat and the polls suggest he has a tremendous fight in order to do so.