BBC Question Time election debate: Leaders just can't stop talk about sharing 'darkened rooms' with each other

All of the leader's said why sharing a darkened room with their rivals may be a bad idea

Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and David Cameron appeal to the audience during the Question Time special (Getty Images)

The three leaders all appeared to have one thing on minds during last night’s final pre-election debate: darkened rooms.

David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband all made reference to the “darkened room” that leaders would “disappear into” to discuss the future government in the event of a hung parliament.

Cameron spoke about “giving away some of the things in your programme,” while Miliband added that he wasn’t in the business of “darkened rooms” where you were “lopping off bits of your manifesto”.

Clegg – who remains hopeful he might get into a darkened room with either the Conservatives or the Labour Party – joked: “He keeps talking about darkened rooms, Mr Miliband.

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“I have to say to you if either of them still think they’re going to win a majority they need to both go and lie down in that darkened room.”

But in a shocking turn of events Miliband made possibly the best joke of the evening – albeit with a very low bar – telling the audience: “This business of going into a darkened room with Nick Clegg,” he said.

“Now, I don’t like the sound of that at all for a whole range of reasons.”