MARR SHOWS HIS TRUE COLOURS

*
Andrew Marr's third and final big interview with the three major party leaders was with David Cameron.
*
I said some complimentary things about Marr recently. I now take them all back. This was one of the most aggressive, not to say rude interviews I've witnessed. Marr's left-wing (pro-Labour bias) was naked and unashamed.

The simplest point to make is to compare the Interruption Coefficients for the interviews. For Nick Clegg it was 1.3 and for Gordon Brown it was 1.0. For David Cameron today it was a huge 2.1. These figures show that Marr interrupted Cameron more than twice as much as he interrupted Brown. This is not merely suggestive of bias, it is proof of bias.
*
Counting (as always) only those interruptions that stop the interviewee or alter the course of the interviewee's point, Marr interrupted Cameron a massive 59 times!
*
There were also a large number of what I call abortive interruptions too, where either Cameron fended off an attempted interruption, or where the flow was neither stopped nor changed because Cameron ignored the interruption. To which we can add a fair few heckles and many other mutterings.

The questions could have been written by Charlie Whelan or Alistair Campbell.
*
The first 17 focused (as expected) on the Conservatives' attitudes to Europe in the wake of the Irish 'Yes' vote on the Lisbon Treaty, with repeated questions suggesting evasiveness and (of course) one about Tory splits.
*
Then we had questions on welfare, followed by 17 questions on public spending cuts. Marr focused not on our nation's overwhelming levels of debt - Dave had to mention that, as Marr was clearly not going to! - but on how many jobs would be lost as a result of Tory cuts. Question after question came on that one specific point over a 9-minute stretch of the interview. Just on that point. As I say, Charlie and Alistair could not have asked for anything more.

Next came 7 questions on tax, led (inevitably) by 3 questions on inheritance tax (which Labour is very keen to focus on).
*
Then the interview got personal, & not in the gentle, pussyfooting way of last week's question about Brown's blindness and his alleged pill-taking but in a nasty, direct manner than left me feeling very hot under the collar. "A lot of people" say "you're a very, very rich man" and a "toff", said Marr. Yes, a lot of Labour-supporting people especially!
*
Up behind Marr came that embarrassing picture of Cameron at the Bullingdon Club and it stayed up throughout the rest of the interview.
*
Marr then questioned the 'personal wealth of you and your wife', asking if it was true that Cameron was worth £30 million. Cameron said that was rubbish.
*
A cynical Llew on the Biased BBC website wondered last week whether Marr asking Brown so gently about the pills was a cunning ploy to allow Marr (and the rest of the BBC) to open fire on Cameron's personal affairs. It looks as if Llew was right, and not cynical at all.
*
Cameron's 'bad call' on financial regulation was next up, before a brief question on TV debates between the party leaders.
*
What I haven't yet pointed out was the continual editorialising by Marr - editorialising befitting a former chief political correspondent for The Independent! When an interviewer gives a running commentary on his interviewee's answers, and if those comments are hostile, that's clear proof of bias. There are many examples to choose from, but I would pick the comment with which Marr close the section on Europe. Picking up Cameron's own words, Marr opined "With respect that's probably the problem. Let's move on to welfare..." (There was very little respect in this interview). This is not the first time Marr has disputed a point David Cameron has made & then moved on quickly to another subject without allowing him a come-back. It's what he does.
*
There's much more to say about this, but that's enough to give a strong flavour of the Marr-Cameron interview.
*
This was BBC bias at it's most blatant.
*