‘Empty chair’ threat to PM if he won’t join TV debates

Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage are ready to “empty chair” David Cameron by going ahead with the leaders’ election debates on TV without the Prime Minister, if necessary, unless he drops his demand that the Green Party leader Natalie Bennett takes part.

The final decision is for Ofcom and the broadcasters but there are strong rumours reported in The Times that they could legally “empty chair” Cameron and go ahead with the televised debates so long as Cameron’s views are represented.

Cameron is insisting that he will not join the TV debates unless the Green Party is included. The other party leaders are not fooled that the PM has suddenly decided to become the green again – they believe it’s a naked device to sabotage the TV debates, by tying up the broadcasters in interminable red tape.

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Farage said: “Looks like Mr Cameron is a chicken running scared over the TV debates.” Miliband said: “This is a Prime Minister who is running scared, trying to chicken out of these TV debates.” Clegg accused the PM of “making excuses”.

As Don Brind wrote for The Week before Christmas, it was a former Blair aide, John McTernan, who first raised the “empty chair” idea last month.

Lord Ashcroft, onetime Tory fund-raiser turned pollster, told Cameron he shouldn’t have taken part in the TV debates in 2010 when Clegg came through as a star and it is understood the new Tory election strategist, Lynton Crosby, has urged him to avoid them in 2015.

The Observer reported in August that Crosby was determined to complicate the negotiations in a bid to prevent Cameron having to appear on TV.

But would the PM be “frit”, as LabourList puts it? Cameron is not afraid of facing Miliband and he knows Clegg’s reputation has been damaged since he gave his bravura performances in 2010.

It is Farage he doesn’t want to give a free platform to: despite the Ukip leader’s constant refrain that his party is draining support from both the Tories and Labour, the reality is that disaffected Tories are Ukip’s key target.

When the BBC's Have I Got News For You "empty-chaired" the lardy Roy Hattersley in 1993, they represented the missing deputy Labour leader with a tub of lard placed on the desk next to Paul Merton. What will be deemed appropriate for an absent Cameron - a tub of chicken pate? Answers on a postcard to Ofcom.