Kennedy: Returning to action on Thursday

Following the birth of his son, Charles Kennedy will return to the election campaign tomorrow to launch the Liberal Democrat manifesto.

Kennedy had to postpone the launch of his party's election pledges, originally due out on Tuesday, to attend the birth of his son.

But after only a two day break from the campaign trail, Kennedy will outline the party's manifesto promises at a press conference in London on Thursday morning.

The party has also announced that its manifesto will take the form of a compact sized newspaper and will be 16,000 words long.

Kennedy's photograph will feature on the front cover, the party is keen to add, in contrast to the documents of Labour and the Conservatives which do not feature the image of their leaders.

The Lib Dem leader had already confirmed on Tuesday he would only take a short break to be with his wife Sarah and their newborn son Donald James Kennedy.

Labour manifesto

The Lib Dems said the decision not to put Tony Blair on the front cover of the Labour manifesto showed he had become an electoral liability.

Lord Razzall, Lib Dem campaign chief, said: "They do not have the same confidence in Tony Blair as we do in our leader."

Deputy leader Sir Menzies Campbell said voters would realise the prime minister and his government were inseparable and that foundation hospitals, tuition fees and "authoritarian responses every time there was a problem" were Labour policies.

He added that Labour would be the same whether or not they were led by Blair.

"The presence or otherwise of Tony Blair in 18 months or two years does not seem to be relevant to this campaign," Sir Menzies said.

"Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are joined at the hip."