Kay Burley’s decision to “empty chair” James Cleverly will not lead to a formal investigation after Ofcom assessed the whole programme.
The media watchdog received 271 complaints over the Sky News presenter’s actions.
Burley claimed the Conservative Party chairman missed a planned appearance on her breakfast show, although the Tory MP responded that he was not due to appear.
Burley addressed a vacant seat with planned questions for the Tory politician.
But after assessing whether the two-hour programme breached rules on due impartiality, an Ofcom spokeswoman said: “We assessed complaints about the presenter’s treatment of the Conservative Party chairman.
“Having assessed the programme as a whole, we were satisfied that the viewpoint of the Conservatives was given sufficient weight to maintain due impartiality.
“This included a repeated clip of James Cleverly discussing his party’s ambitions for the election campaign.”
Mr Cleverly denied that he had been due to attend, saying: “I like to think I’m a pretty decent multitasker, but I cannot physically be in two places at the same time.”
