Axed Home Office minister Jezza Browne reveals Grant Shapps has tried to get him to meet up to talk about defecting to the Tories. Presumably at Nandos. But he said no:

“One, because I had no intention or desire to defect to the Conservatives… and, secondly, that it could, and probably would, be misconstrued if I had a meeting at all.”

Whole lot of different possible permutations here. Judging by the weakness of Browne’s denial – not even an attempt to rule out a future defection – you can bet Shapps will be on the phone again at some point. If he still says no, will the Tories still see his Taunton Deane constituency as a target seat? It was a 49%-42% LibDem-Tory split last time round. Or will they go easy on him with an eye on 2015 coalition negotiations? Should’ve just given him a panda…