Welcome to our live blog of the BBC’s Question Time, which tonight features British National Party leader Nick Griffin on its panel.

Whichever side of the debate you fall on, no-one can deny that this has developed into a huge story. The BBC has defended its decision to invite Griffin on, Gordon Brown has predicted that it will backfire and security has been ramped up ahead of the show.

Question Time is broadcast at 10:35pm BST, so follow our live blog below during the build-up and the show itself. We really want to hear your views on the show - so send in your comments now!

This is a busy week for the British National Party (BNP).

Today it was warned to stop using military imagery in its campaign material. A group of former military leaders accused the BNP, which has used photographs of spitfire fighter planes and Winston Churchill, of hijacking Britain’s history for their own “dubious ends.”

The distinguished generals said this tarnished the reputation of the armed forces and called on them to “cease and desist.”

Meanwhile, the BNP’s membership list has been leaked again. The names and addresses of thousands of members was posted on Wikileaks, a website that allows information to be published anonymously. BNP leader Nick Griffin said the list was a “malicious forgery.”

Most controversially of all, Griffin is scheduled to appear on BBC’s Question Time this Thursday evening. The decision to give the BNP a seat on the panel has angered some people, who feel they should not be given a platform to air their extreme views on issues such as immigration.

However, despite calls from Welsh Secretary Peter Hain to have Griffin dropped on the grounds that the party “is not lawfully constituted”, Director General Mark Thompson defended the BBC position of due impartiality. He said: “If there were to be any election –- local or national –- tomorrow, the BNP would still be able to field candidates.”

Do you think the BNP should be stopped from using military imagery to promote its policies? Is there a danger the armed forces will be tainted by this association with the far-right? Do you agree with the BBC’s decision to invite Nick Griffin to appear on Question Time?

Question Time will be broadcast on BBC1 at 10.35pm this Thursday and we will be live blogging throughout the programme.

Do you have a question you would like to ask Chancellor Alistair Darling? Now is your chance.

At 1:30pm British time on Wednesday, October 21, Reuters is hosting an exclusive Web 2.0 interview with Darling and we want you to send us your questions to put to the top man from the Treasury.

From the crippling global recession to the debate over bankers' bonuses, it has been a tumultuous year at Number 11 Downing Street. You may want to quiz the Chancellor on one of these topics, ask him about the government's plans to prevent another downturn or how Labour plan to defy the polls and win the upcoming general election.

During the interview we will put as many of your questions as possible to the Chancellor and will be running a liveblog of the event, much like we did during this social media interview with Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.

Leave your question in the comments box below or via Twitter (using #askdarling) and join us on Wednesday for our Web 2.0 interview with the Chancellor.

The largest review of primary schooling in England for 40 years has said children at five are too young to start formal education and that six would be a more suitable age.

The Cambridge University study says play-based learning should go on for another year. Making children start school so young was a throwback to the Victorian age when the factories wanted them to start early so they could finish early and get working on the production line sooner.

Only Wales, Scotland and the Netherlands start children off at school so early, it noted. Schooling starts at the age of six in 20 out of 34 European countries, with eight nations, including Sweden, waiting until children are seven.

The government disagrees.  “A school starting age of six would be completely counter-productive,” says Schools Minister Vernon Coaker. “We want to make sure children are playing and learning from an early age and to give parents the choice for their child to start in the September following their fourth birthday. ”

What do you think? Is five too young?

Chalk and organic cheese would be an understatement.

There is a surprising public perception that there wouldn’t be much difference between a Conservative or Labour government, but there couldn’t be fewer similarities between the supporters of both movements and the two party conferences.

It would be hard to imagine union activists sipping on cocktails from the Knightsbridge luxury store Harvey Nichols stand at the Labour party conference in Brighton, but in Manchester thirsty Conservatives can enjoy an HN gin ricky.

They can also buy soft, pastel cashmere jumpers from Marks & Spencer or get a suit fitted in the market place. Cufflinks and chalices await those who visit the elite Carlton Club stall, along with limited edition portraits of icon Margaret Thatcher.

At Labour, union stands tend to dominate — reflecting their influence over the movement and the party’s reliance on their funding. The closest you can get to a Harvey Nichols cocktail by the main hall is a pint of tepid bitter from the hatch.

Beans on jacket potatoes, stewed tea and bacon buns with butter and brown sauce on sale in Brighton; fairtrade white chocolate muffins, herbal tea and organic, homemade sandwiches in Manchester.

And it doesn’t stop there. Outside the Labour party conference, radical socialists march past crying “Revolution!”, pro-Palestinian supporters picket. In Manchester, the anti-European UK Independence Party rally against the European Union and a few protest against hunting.

Of course there is some overlap but, at grassroots level, these two parties appeal to two opposite walks of British life.

While winning the middle ground will be crucial, the result of next year’s election will also rest on how successful both parties are at mobilising these very, very different breeds of voters.

Three big speeches have been delivered at the Conservative Party conference so far — by party leader David Cameron, the mayor of London and national bumbler, Boris Johnson, and the party’s spokesman on the economy, George Osborne.

What do all three men have in common apart from their membership of the Conservative Party? They were all educated at elite public schools (Johnson and Cameron at Eton and Osborne at St Paul’s) and all went to Oxford, where they were members of the same dining and social set, the secretive and selective Bullingdon Club.

They have all tried to play down their wealth and upbringing — Johnson has even made an appearance on Britain’s favourite soap opera EastEnders — but there is no erasing the fact that Osborne is an Irish baronet, Cameron is a direct descendant of King William IV and Johnson also has a sprinkling of royal ancestry, even if he has described himself as a “one-man melting pot”.

Opponents have pointed to the wealth and clique of the Conservative leadership to suggest the party is out of touch with ordinary, working-class Britain and unfit to govern. What do you think? Does class really matter when it comes to running the country?

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has promised to clean up politics, get tough on crime in his keynote speech to the annual Labour Party conference in Brighton. He also pledged to address the bonus culture that many blame for the financial crisis.

The ‘Word Cloud’ below (click the image for a larger view), produced by Wordle, shows the words he used most frequently.

The speech was an attempt to rouse his beleaguered party and win back the middle-class voters who flocked to Labour under Tony Blair. The latest opinion poll from Ipsos Mori put Labour down in third place for the first time since 1982.

Reuters Chief Correspondent Keith Weir, who is live blogging the Labour conference, said the key themes that struck him were Brown’s focus on families, health, crime and middle or mainstream issues.

What did you think of Gordon Brown’s speech? Have your views on him changed? Do you think he can still win a general election next year?

As a conference first-timer, I was curious to know what goes on off stage in the conference centre — where the television cameras seldom go.

The lobby area at the Brighton Conference venue is packed with stalls for various campaign groups — everyone from the heavyweights of the Nuclear Industry Association to the Paul Daisley Trust, touchingly run by the widow of a Labour MP who died of colorectal cancer in 2003.

There are plenty of sweets on offer and the canvas bag with slogan is the favourite giveaway.

The Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association even allow visitors to try out on Wii Fit’s ski jump. For the record, your correspondent cleared 100 metres before crashing out on his second attempt — way off the conference record marked on the whiteboard.

The most arresting sight is a lollipop lady made of ice — she is slowly melting away in the conference heat. The Unison Union warns that public services would suffer a similar fate if political parties cut public spending.

The Labour Party conference in Brighton is crucial if the party is to start a revival that could give it a fourth successive term in office. As well as covering Gordon Brown’s big set piece on Tuesday, our team of three reporters will try to gauge party morale and give you a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes beside the seaside.

You can follow our Twitter and video updates via our live blog, which will appear in the box below.

- Andrew Robinson is the leader of the Pirate Party UK. The opinions expressed are his own.-

Draconian penalties for file sharing were threatened by the government on Tuesday. In addition to the previously announced 50,000 pound maximum penalty for "IP offences" we are now told that whole families are to be disconnected from the net if just one member is accused of sharing files.

Leaving aside the obvious injustice of this proposal and the fact that our court service which handled 2.1 million cases last year is not going to be able to handle the 4.9 million extra cases that the government's stated target of a 70 percent reduction in Britain's 7 million file sharers would would necessitate, I think we should also consider who stands to benefit from this proposed crackdown.

There are two major ways that the general public currently access copyrighted content without paying the rights holders. One is through file sharing, where information is freely shared for no financial gain, and the public participate in what is effectively a giant library where even the rarest snipped of music or least appreciated TV show is altruistically preserved for posterity.

The other is through the purchase of counterfeit CDs and DVDs, where organised criminals exploit the work of others for financial gain, and tend to concentrate their efforts on solely on the latest blockbuster hits.

Inexplicably, the government are prepared to trample over all semblance of natural justice in order to stamp out the former, while completely ignoring the latter. The inevitable consequence of this is that people will switch from file sharing to buying counterfeit products, which is a seemingly trivial offence with no history of incurring terrifying penalties.

These measures will not help the preservation of our culture, or win votes for the Labour party, or boost the media industry's profits. The actual beneficiaries of the file sharing crackdown will be inevitably be the organised criminal gangs producing counterfeit goods.

The Pirate Party UK proposes legalising file sharing when it is done without making profit, a policy that would allow enforcement measures to be focused on real criminals, the very gangs of organised counterfeiters who must currently be rubbing their hands in glee at Lord  Mandelson's file sharing crackdown.

Related Blog: Cutting off the music file-sharers