After a week seemingly dominated by visits from senior Conservatives, the Labour Party's charm offensive finally clicked into gear this morning.

Decamping to the North en masse for tonight's historic TV leader's debate, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and his wife Sarah, visited the Meadowbank Sure Start Children's Centre in Atherton, which is now part of the key marginal Bolton West constituency.

Speaking to me during the visit - an exclusive one-on-one which you can read all about in tomorrow's The Bolton News - he seemed relaxed ahead of the tonight's ITV1 debate, which he said he was looking forward to.

I bet, though, deep down, he is absolutely terrified. I know I would be.

The same goes for David Cameron - who is apparently, according to The Guardian, 'anxious to the point of terror' - and Nick Clegg who is probably a bit more relaxed due to the fact he has very little to lose.

As I have said before I think the debates will be interesting on a number of levels - personality, policies and presentation being the key P's - and according to a survey 50 per cent of those who will be watching the debates will use them to decide who to vote for on May 6.

No pressure then.

I'll be having a look at how each of the leaders perform later tonight and then doing a full run down in tomorrow morning's blogs.

The Green Party are launching their manifesto as I type so I will be looking at that at some point today as well.

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