Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Nick Clegg enlists Basil Fawlty to play Farage in TV debate rehearsals

Tomorrow’s TV debate between the seven party leaders is the chance for the insurgent parties to muscle up to the mainstream leaders, make them look tired and old, and in doing so gain more supporters. But the leader with the biggest challenge is Nick Clegg, the insurgent in the 2010 debates, now coming to the end of five years in government. How does he fight Farage and boost the Lib Dem brand?

The Lib Dem leader has been rehearsing with colleagues playing his rivals like all the other politicians, but I understand that his preparations for the debate have a rather more stellar quality to them than his opponents’ rehearsals. John Cleese, a Lib Dem supporter, recently suggested to the Deputy Prime Minister at a party event that he could play Nigel Farage in the rehearsals.

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