ED Miliband has been branded "a joke" by David Cameron after the Labour leader subjected himself to a politically risky interview with the idiosyncratic comedian-turned-activist Russell Brand.
On the campaign trail, the Prime Minister seized on the unexpected meeting after a fuzzy photograph emerged on Twitter of Mr Miliband leaving Mr Brand's London flat.
"As for Russell Brand," said Mr Cameron, "he says 'don't vote', that's his whole view, don't vote; it would only encourage them or something. That's funny...but politics and life and elections and jobs and the economy is not a joke. Russell Brand's a joke. Ed Miliband, to hang out with Russell Brand, he's a joke."
Mr Brand responded with a tweet mocking the PM's blunder last weekend when he named West Ham United rather than Aston Villa as the football team he supported.
Alongside a picture of the Tory leader in his youthful Bullingdon Club days, the comedian, who supports West Ham, said: "Don't be jealous Dave - I'll run into you at West Ham - when you're not busy with ordinary people."
Mr Miliband also hit back, insisting the "joke" was Mr Cameron's refusal to take part in a head-to-head televised showdown with him.
"A joke is saying you want this election to be about leadership and then refusing to debate me," declared the Labour leader, who said he had agreed to the interview with Mr Brand to make the election more interesting.
In a pre-released clip of the 20-minute interview on Mr Brand's YouTube channel Trews, which is due to be broadcast today, Mr Miliband said a Labour government would take on tax avoidance by multinational companies.
He told the comedian that many voters shared his "outrage" over multi-national companies, which used complicated tax arrangements to minimise the amounts they paid and assured him: "We've got to deal with that."
Mr Miliband, dressed in a dark suit and tie and perched on a kitchen bar stool, insisted: "It can be dealt with but you've got to have a government that is willing to say there's something wrong with this and we are going to deal with it."
When the comedian asked him: "You are that government?" the Labour leader replied: "Yeah."
Recently, Mr Brand, following the screening of a documentary critical of the growing inequality in Britain, argued the General Election was irrelevant.
He added: "People want me to talk about the election but, watching it again, it just makes me think there's no justice; it's dead."
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