Election: Vote battle intensifies for final three days

Election: Vote battle intensifies for final three days

Cameron denies he is 'over-confident'
Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg are into the final three days of election campaigning.

The Tories are ahead in the polls but not by enough to get a majority - Mr Cameron says they will campaign through the night in a final push from Tuesday.

Mr Brown said he would fight "every inch" and said "judgement and wisdom" were needed after the financial crisis.

Mr Clegg told supporters in south-east London "the sky's the limit" and they had "three days to change Britain".

The three leaders are spending the bank holiday visiting numerous seats they hope to win on 6 May.

'No complacency'

Three days before the closest election since 1992, an ICM/Guardian poll puts the Conservatives on 33%, Labour and the Lib Dems on 28% while a YouGov poll for the Sun puts the Tories on 34%, Lib Dems on 29% and Labour on 28% - which continue to point to a hung parliament.

BBC News Channel chief political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg said despite the final TV debate and Mr Brown having to apologise after being overheard calling a pensioner "bigoted", the polls had not really shifted over the past week.

In Blackpool on Monday, Mr Cameron said there was not "one ounce of complacency" in his campaign and pledged a through-the-night campaign from Tuesday night to Wednesday night, in which he is expected to meet fishermen, bakers and florists who work in the early hours of the morning.


In this country you don't inherit power, you have to earn it

Nick Clegg


Clegg warns of Tory 'arrogance'
He said he was taking "no vote for granted" and recognised that millions of people were still making up their minds.

In a message to his parliamentary candidates he said: "This is the vital time. You need to go door to door, street to street, house to house. We have a huge amount of work to do, a lot of people left to convince."

"If we get out there we can... win it and win it for our country," he said.

On Sunday he said his party had the "momentum" - and was criticised by Labour's Lord Mandelson who said Mr Cameron was "desperate to give the impression that he is home and dry" but in fact voters were "firmly resisting his soft soap campaign".

'Sky's the limit'

Addressing supporters in Blackheath, south-east London, Mr Clegg accused Mr Cameron of "breathtaking arrogance" and of "measuring up the curtains" at 10 Downing Street before the election had taken place.

Urging activists to "campaign every minute of the day", he said: "Anything can happen. The sky's the limit."


I'm going to fight every inch of the way and every second of the day

Gordon Brown
Mr Clegg said: "We have got three days in this most exciting election campaign, three days to change Britain for good. Three days to deliver the fairness... for the families and communities of Great Britain."

He acknowledged a change in Lib Dem strategy - campaigning in seats like Streatham and Lewisham that the party would not have expected to win. Mr Clegg told the BBC: "We are reaching deeper into parts of Britain that have been let down by Labour in particular for so long."

The Lib Dems have also released a list of celebrity supporters - which includes actors Colin Firth and Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, satirist Armando Ianucci and campaigner Bianca Jagger.

Meanwhile Mr Brown has been joined by his own celebrity supporter, Dragons' Den entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne, in visits to Basildon and Ipswich on Monday morning.

Equality plans

He acknowledged he was "fighting for my life" in what he described as "a post global-financial-crisis election".

He said the government needed to make the "right calls" and "judgement and wisdom" were needed while the Tories had been on the wrong side of the arguments during the economic crisis.

"It is a Labour majority government we need," he said.

"I'm going to fight every inch of the way and every second of the day to tell people in Britain that fight for the future must mean people look at our plan and what we're proposing."

The Conservatives have unveiled plans for a "contract for young people" - to guarantee them help with training and getting jobs and are setting out plans for new rules aimed at forcing listed companies to hire more female directors, proposals to close the gender pay gap and set up mentoring schemes for female and ethnic minority entrepreneurs.

Labour is concentrating on its "seasides manifesto" to boost resort towns and help them benefit from opportunities in low carbon businesses and economic regeneration.

The Lib Dems will turn their fire on the Conservatives arguing they would not reform the banks and rebuild the economy because they are "in hock to the City of London".

The three leaders will also address a CitizensUK election "assembly" of about 2,500 people in London. Each will speak for 10 minutes before taking questions from a panel about "civil society".