Election do's and don'ts

Any students thinking that they can get away without voting on May 5 are in for a shock. Kat Fletcher, National Union of Students president, and Hannah Essex, vice-president, are plotting a whistle-stop tour of marginal seats to persuade students to make their mark at the ballot box.

Where the Kat and Hannah roadshow will go remains to be seen.

The bigger question is, which party will the ardently anti-fee and left-wing Ms Fletcher suggest should get the student vote?

Meanwhile, the Permanent Secretary in the Department for Education and Skills has decreed that universities doing research for the department cannot carry out fieldwork interviews while the politicians are puffing out their election messages. What are they worried might get out?

And the funding councils have agreed that the names of people sitting on their research assessment exercise panels cannot be published until after the election. Would the constitution of RAE panels D or G really affect how you vote?