Caniddates' final day of campaigning

Steve Norris was today marking the final frantic day of campaigning in the mayoral race with provocative visits to New Scotland Yard and Ken Livingstone's Brent heartland.

In a snub to the Met Police's unhappiness at his central election theme of rising crime, the Tory candidate was launching a controversial poster near the force's HQ. The poster warns voters to make sure they go to the polling station tomorrow in broad daylight to avoid being mugged.

Mr Norris was also visiting Brent to single out soaring crime in the borough. "If Ken Livingstone can't sort out crime in his own backyard, how can he do it in the rest of London?" he said.

Mr Livingstone was touring Tory Barnet in a bid to persuade Labour supporters to vote. Mr Norris would cut bus services, scrap the congestion charge and fail to recruit more police on the beat, he said.

But Lib-Dem Simon Hughes fought hard to dispel the image of a Labour-Tory two-horse race, saying that if Mr Livingstone was toppled Tony Blair could follow soon after. Seizing on rumours that a disastrous result in London could trigger Labour backbench moves to oust the Prime Minister, Mr Hughes insisted only he could beat the Mayor.

Speaking last night at the final public debate before the mayoral elections, Mr Livingstone attacked the Government's asylum policy as he pleaded with voters to turn out to help stop the British National Party. He revealed he had met Home Secretary David Blunkett to warn him his approach to limiting the number of immigrants was damaging race relations.

He said: "I went to David Blunkett and said: 'What you are saying is feeding the obsession with race and asylum.'" The Mayor also warned that if only around one in three people vote, as expected, the BNP would need just 80,000 votes to take its first seat on the London Assembly.