Join our political team for all the latest from the campaign trail, as Ed Miliband seeks to get the debate back to the NHS and the Tories announce 600,000 free childcare places 7.16am BST Tesco posts £6.38bn loss, biggest in UK retail historyNot strictly politics, but given the sum involved a huge blow for the coalition’s much-trumpeted economic recovery. Related: Tesco posts £6.38bn loss; Eurozone finance chiefs discuss Greece - business live 7.06am BST Hello, and welcome to the Guardian’s election live blog. We are bringing you live coverage every day until 7 May – and in all likelihood well beyond – from 7am till late. As always we kick off with our all-you-need-to-know morning briefing, designed for election fans who don’t spend all night watching TV news or all morning scanning the papers and radio.I’m Mark Smith, starting this morning’s blog, before Andrew Sparrow takes over later on. We’re on Twitter @marksmith174 and@AndrewSparrow, and reading comments below the line, too, should you want to say hello, ask a question or point out anything we should be covering.TIMES: Law chief faces new onslaught over Janner #tomorrowspaperstoday #BBCPapers pic.twitter.com/bGc4fY8qPyThey have managed to combine their warnings of economic chaos after 8 May – the threat of excessive borrowing, leftwing influence and instability – with the threat posed by Scottish nationalism. By uniting Nicola Sturgeon and Ed Miliband in the nation’s mind, the Tories have injected a badly needed new ingredient into their warnings about Miliband. Previously, those warnings were not gaining sufficient traction because Miliband had been outperforming expectations.As with the SNP surge, a significant cause of Lib Dem decline is deep-rooted cultural aversion to the Tories. Not only is the Tory brand toxic for many voters; it turns out to contaminate parties that get too close, as Labour did in the no camp during the Scottish independence referendum. So the Lib Dems can expect little gratitude for serving as a parliamentary prosthesis where there might once have been a liberal, moderate, pro-European limb on the Conservative party. Nor is there any excitement about their potential role as lobbyists for more liberalism in a Labour administration. But that doesn’t mean their humiliation is good for British politics. The space they occupy would otherwise be vacant.If neither Mr Cameron nor Mr Miliband were able to put together a viable government, a second election would normally follow; but the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011 complicates matters. It provides for a dissolution of Parliament only when there is a specific vote of no confidence in the government or if two thirds of all MPs vote for an election. This makes the prospect of another early general election less likely. In any case, the parties may have little appetite for one given the expense and the prospect of losing support in a fresh contest.Without a dissolution we would have a legislature but no government, a bit like Belgium, where the prime minister resigned in April 2010 and no new parliamentary majority could be established for almost two years.Given the volatile state of British feelings about the nation’s relationship with the EU, it really is extraordinary how little the issue has figured in this election campaign. If the issue is so important, why aren’t Conservatives jumping all over Labour for refusing to offer a referendum? Clearly, their strategists have decided the EU referendum is not the critical issue that will turn this tight election campaign to the Tories. They have to know that the most recent polling shows that more voters want to stay in the EU then leave. Continue reading...
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