I think that Mr Milliband, or his speech writer, is probably aware of normal grammatical usage. It could just be an example of brachylogia - abbreviating his phrasing in order to make it stand out. In that sense it has worked as people are talking about it, including on this forum.
It is also an example of US phrasing anyway and may refer to examples from presidential races where candidates (e.g. McCain) have lost crucial support in the polls for not wanting to show up to debate. Or so he hopes...
This post was last modified: 27-04-2015 01:17 PM by lacb.