For those who hadn't realized, over on this side of the pond, there's a general election coming up in May. There are some planned televised leaders' debates, but after speaking on many, many occasions over the past few years about how essential these debates are, David Cameron has been playing games: he has caused many complications to be introduced, and now has said "OK, I'll do just one on precisely these conditions, because it was looking all too complicated" as though he's being the good guy cutting through all the complexity. There is a very real chance that he won't do any of the (probably three) TV debates, which has caused widespread use of a new transitive verb: to "empty chair" someone - presumably in the hope that the empty chair will win the debate in much the same way the one Clint Eastwood was talking to back in 2012 did (yeah, I wrote a "Talking to a Chair" parody about that one, too)

Nick Clegg (Deputy PM and leader of the LibDems) rather cheekily suggested that if Dave didn't want to do the debates, he'd be happy to take his place to defend the Government's record (cue much hilarity)

Ed Miliband (leader of the opposition Labour party) in a bit of petty populist grandstanding has said he thinks these debates are so important that if elected, he'll pass a law forcing party leaders to take part.

With children like this in charge of the country, no wonder things ain't better.