Labour, the Lib Dems and Ukip are having quite a bit of fun with their identical letters from their respective leaders demanding that David Cameron take part in the TV debates – or risk having something done to him that is even worse than a noun being turned into a verb (the latest threat is that he will be ‘empty-podiumed’, which sounds considerably more unpleasant than being ‘empty-chaired’ and possibly as bad as someone ‘weaponising’ something).
As for why David Cameron doesn’t want the debates to go ahead, Daniel Finkelstein has a revealing piece in today’s Times in which he says the Tories forgot about Nick Clegg when they signed up to the 2010 debates – and have now realised the potency of the outsider, who this time round will be embodied by Nigel Farage.
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