One of the Conservatives' pre-election digital strategies has been to buy up keywords on Google, such as "hung parliament" and "Gordon Brown", so that adverts for the party appear whenever users search for these terms online. But the Tories' web-savvy action plan may cost them in the end. Every time someone clicks on a Conservative link, the party pays a small fee to Google. So John Prescott has urged his 17,475 Twitter followers to click on the adverts and take "50p out of the Tories' war chest". Google insists that it has taken measures to prevent "click fraud", and that the Conservatives won't be left out of pocket. But whatever the result on 6 May, the internet giant is sure to be one of the winners of this election.

Labour is struggling to contain the growing divisions in Stoke Central, where local members have been angered by the selection of the historian Tristram Hunt as the party's candidate. Reports that Hunt was "parachuted" into the seat at the behest of Peter Mandelson, a close friend, have led to the resignation of several activists. One of them, Gary Elsby, the former secretary of the local party, now plans to stand as an independent. Theseat, where Labour has a notional majority of 9,132, has usually been regarded as a safe one, but activists fear that Labour's infighting puts it at risk. Anti-fascist campaigners warn that the BNP, which has seven councillors in Stoke, could make further inroads in the constituency.

The leader of the Respect party, Salma Yaqoob, has received another boost to her campaign in Birmingham Hall Green. Labour's Lynne Jones, the outgoing MP or neighbouring Selly Oak, has announced that she will be supporting Yaqoob instead of the Labour candidate Roger Godsiff. The Respect councillor, who finished second in the seat in 2005, is putting Labour under pressure and Jones could now face disciplinary action.