Kay Burley mocks Tory chairman with 'empty chair' interview after he fails to show up

Sky News' Kay Burley mocked Tory chairman James Cleverly after he failed to turn up to her interview despite having done the media circuit with several other news outlets.

During her breakfast program, she pointed to an empty seat beside her and said: "It was supposed to be filled by the chairman of the Conservative party."

Where is he? He's probably 15 feet from where I am standing at the moment. 

I've been in to see him during the break, he said he wasn't due to come and talk to us today, although they had said they would talk to us today

At which point Burley begins to mercilessly list the things that she wanted to ask him about - including if the Conservative party is having a "good day" given Jacob Rees-Mogg's Grenfell comments and the row over the Brexit transition period.

"I also wanted to ask if he thought the Conservatives were having a good day," she continued angrily. "I also wanted to ask him about his suggestion - certainly his bosses suggestion - that Jeremy Corbyn was demonising billionaires and whether or not it was a good idea to defend billionaires at the start of the campaign."

I know Number 10 Downing Street watch our show, I know the spin doctors at Downing Street have absolutely reassured me by text that when politicians were doing the rounds in the morning they would do this programme. and yet we have an empty chair.

"Where on earth is he? He is 15 feet away from me, James Cleverly, who is the chair of the Conservative party, and he says he will not come on this programme to answer all of those questions.

"I'm fuming, I'm sure if you are watching and you want answers to those questions you will be fizzing as well."

Burley received applause online for her report

Sources close to Cleverly said that he had not been booked to appear on Sky, and was actually taking part in an interview on TalkRadio at the time of the empty-chair broadcast.

“It is totally false to say he ducked the interview in any way, shape or form,” said the source. “He has done a full round of interviews this morning."

However writer Alex Andreou pointed out a problem with that defence