TV presenter interviews an empty chair to destroy no-show politician

What do you do if the guest you were planning to interview decides they don't want to be on your show any more?

Well, if you're Sky News presenter Kay Burley, you speak to their empty chair instead.

"It was supposed to be filled by the Chairman of the Conservative party," Burley said on Sky News on Wednesday morning, gesturing to the empty chair opposite her.

"Where is he? He's probably 15 feet away from where I'm standing just 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 that they would talk to us."

Burley then proceeded to run through all the things she was planning to ask Conservative Chairman James Cleverly about — from Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently comparing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to Stalin, to Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg's widely-condemned comments about the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

Burley retweeted clips from the Sky News segment on Wednesday, which went viral after they were shared widely on Twitter.

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Many people praised Burley for the way she handled the situation.

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It's worth noting that Cleverly has since hit back at Kay Burley, arguing that he was doing another interview when Burley addressed the empty chair.

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Burley, however, is standing by what she said in the clip — that Cleverly had agreed to an interview with her.

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Behind-the-scenes conversations aside, it seems fair to say that the "empty chair" interview will probably get way more coverage than Cleverly's in-person appearances today.