He was there again this week, struggling to turn back a Conservative tide which has engulfed a swathe of small cities and rural areas across the centre of the province, from the outskirts of Ottawa in the east to Niagara Falls in the south and the university town of London in the west.

ECONOMIST: Canada's election

Dan Silverstone of Portsmouth University, who has interviewed people convicted of firearms offences in north-west London, says that when no single group has a monopoly of violence, more people get shot.

ECONOMIST: Guns in Nottingham

This includes Professor Richard Pring, head of education at Oxford University, Dr Anne West, director of the Centre for Education Research at the London School of Economics and Professor Clyde Chitty, head of education at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

BBC: Striking a blow for comprehensives

Robert West, director of tobacco studies at University College London, meanwhile, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that smokers tended to stop "in clumps".

BBC: 'Stoptober' stop-smoking campaign launched in England

Prof Robert West, the director of tobacco studies at University College London, is cautiously optimistic such measures will have an impact.

BBC: Smoking: Can the nation kick the habit?

Square Eyes is the brainchild of Gillian Swain, a final year design student at Brunel University, in west London.

CNN: Device keeps TV watching on track