The main party leaders are
criss-crossing the UK appealing to undecided voters in key seats as the
election campaign enters its final two days.
Conservative leader
David Cameron said an SNP-backed Labour government was a "chilling
prospect" as he appeared with Boris Johnson in London.
Ed Miliband said Labour would not end up borrowing more than the Tories if he formed the next government.
Nick Clegg said the Lib Dems would "guarantee stability" after 7 May.
The
deputy prime minister warned of the prospect of a "second election
before Christmas" if no party won an outright victory and either the
Conservatives or Labour attempted to govern on their own. UKIP leader Nigel Farage is spending the day in the Kent seat
he hopes to win for his party, after taking out a two-page
advertisement in the Daily Telegraph urging people "to vote with their
heart".
The Democratic Unionist Party said a commission on the union would be a "red line" in any post-election negotiations
Polls suggest the election is still too close to call, and in
the final days the parties are focusing on their core messages amid
speculation about post-election deals if there is a hung Parliament.
In an interview with the BBC, Mr Miliband said he did not accept the
Institute for Fiscal Studies' assessment that debt would be £90 billion
higher in 2019/20 if Labour's plans were implemented rather than the
Conservatives.
And referring to his 8ft stone monument of pledges,
he claimed his campaign vice chairman Lucy Powell had been wrong when
she said no-one had suggested carving them into stone meant "he will
absolutely not" break them.
The Labour leader also acknowledged
for the first time that he might not win an outright victory on
Thursday, by making clear his plan to abolish non-dom status for
foreigners would be non-negotiable in any post-election deal.
He spoke as Labour was out campaigning on the NHS, publishing what it calls a leaked document suggesting 98 of England's 240 trusts are expected to have run up a combined deficit of £750m by next April.
Speaking
in the target seat of Bedford, Mr Miliband said the NHS was facing a
"financial bombshell", which would result in two-thirds of hospitals
having to make substantial cuts this year.
Appealing to undecided
voters as he seeks to improve on the 258 seats his party won in 2010,
the Labour leader said the election would be "the closest we have ever
seen in our history".
Mr Cameron told BBC Radio 5 live that the NHS had made "real progress" in the past five years.
"We have put the money in, we have got rid of bureaucracy, which has
kept money on the front line," he said. "The key thing for the future is
to make sure we have the strong economy that can support the strong
NHS."
By 10 o'clock on Thursday evening the people will have spoken but the
questions which will then follow look likely to be - "What on earth did
they mean by that? Who actually won? Who has the right to govern?"
Unless
the polls are wrong - which they very well might be - and unless there
is a late switch in opinion - which there still could be - most players
and pundits are now expecting an election that is too close to call and
may produce a result which could allow for either David Cameron or Ed
Miliband to become prime minister.
So, what is obsessing
politicians of all parties behind-the-scenes is the debate about what a
legitimate government would look like. Read Nick's blog The
Conservatives, which won 307 seats in 2010, are targeting seats held by
Liberal Democrats, as well as appealing to UKIP supporters and
Conservatives who might not bother to go to the polling station, in an
attempt to win an overall majority.
While SNP MPs were perfectly
entitled to make their voice heard in Westminster, Mr Cameron told the
BBC, it would be "unhealthy" for a future government to be reliant on a
party that "did not want the UK to be a success".
Mr Clegg said
his party would do a "lot better" than commentators were suggesting as
he launched a 1,000 mile "dash" from Land's End to John O'Groats, taking
in key marginal seats in Cornwall, Somerset, South Wales and the
Midlands.
Opinion polls suggest the party could lose up to half of the 57 seats it won five years ago.
Amid
speculation about possible coalition deals in the event of another hung
Parliament, Mr Clegg said the party with the "greatest mandate" in
terms of seats and votes won should have the "space and time to try and
assemble a government".
The Lib Dems, he told Radio 4's Today
programme, would be prepared to talk to other parties - except UKIP and
the SNP - in a "grown-up" way, saying they would be "guarantors of
stability at a time of great uncertainty".
But he warned of a
"shambles" if the Conservatives or Labour try to form a minority
government and rely on the informal support of other parties to get
their legislation through Parliament.
"The last thing Britain
needs is a second election before Christmas," he said. "But that is
exactly what will happen if Ed Miliband and David Cameron put their own
political interest ahead of the national interest."
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