Did we see the real David Cameron tonight? Ouch!

Despite “empty-chairing” himself last night - or “chickening out”, if you prefer - David Cameron has entered the post-debate fray by attacking Ed Miliband for refusing to rule out a post-election deal with SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon.

“Ed Miliband won't rule out a vote-by-vote deal with the SNP so he can be PM,” Cameron tweeted this morning. “It would mean more borrowing and more taxes and you [the electorate] would pay.”

But the PM was skating on thin ice. In Wales to launch his party's Welsh manifesto, he was immediately hit by a flock of tweets featuring pictures of chickens.

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Meanwhile, a video of Tory MP Liz Truss defending Cameron's "no show" has gone viral this morning.

It features Bloomberg political editor Rob Hutton asking whether Cameron's absence from the BBC debate brought out his "true personality". As Truss tried to defend Cameron, Hutton asked: “Do you think we saw the real David Cameron tonight?”

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In a pretty desperate effort to fight the “chicken” charge – and to answer the second most searched question on Google during the event: “Why is David Cameron not at the debate?” - Team Cameron even tried to argue that the Prime Minister had “not been invited” to take part.

Cameron himself made this ludicrous claim earlier in the day, saying: “I’m a polite individual and if I’m not invited, I’m not going to try and gatecrash it.”

After the debate, William Hague picked up the baton, arguing that Cameron had been deliberately excluded. Quite how the Downing Street spin doctors hoped to get away with this - when it is public knowledge that he refused to take part in more than one debate - is a mystery.

Cameron is right on one thing, however – Miliband did not rule out a vote-by-vote deal with the SNP. During his exchange with Nicola Sturgeon, he ruled out only a formal coalition.

Sturgeon to Miliband: “Is it the case that you would rather see David Cameron go back into Downing Street than work with the SNP? Surely that cannot be your position.”

Miliband: “I have fought the Conservatives all my life. We have profound differences. That why I’m not going to have a coalition with the SNP. I’m not going to put at risk the unity of the United Kingdom. It’s a no, I’m afraid”.

But as the BBC’s political correspondent Norman Smith said on the Today programme this morning, there is an "iron logic" about some sort of voting pact between Labour and the SNP being sorted out in the event of a hung Parliament if Labour emerge the largest party.

And as Don Brind reports today, that’s still where the polls are currently pointing.