MARR CHASES A SWALLOW

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One swallow does not make a summer, as the saying goes, but Andrew Marr wasn't going to allow himself to be put off by a mere proverb. Out he came at the very start of the programme, cradling The Observer. Why? Well, as Marr himself put it, "After a general consensus that the Tories are coasting to victory in next year's general election, today's Observer reports a poll cutting their lead to single figures - the narrowest gap between those parties in nearly a year."
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That was not the last we heard of the poll. It was there as he read the front pages of some of the newspapers at the start of this paper review ("And the poll I was mentioning right at the beginning is in The Observer.") It was brought up again in his interview with Nick Clegg: "Now you've been very critical of Gordon Brown just now, can I ask you about the opinion poll this morning that (shows it) may be closer to a hung parliament that we all thought." When Clegg replied "I think it's a really good thing...that these polls..there is a suggestion that it's not a shoe-in election", Andrew Marr went "mmm, mmm" approvingly (as is his way. He just can't stop himself.) Then when introducing David Cameron, he said "A poll this morning reminds us that David Cameron has not beaten Gordon Brown's Labour Party yet." Later in the interview, the poll made its fifth and final appearance on the programme: "Do you look at the poll this morning and think 'maybe all that tough talk has been extremely unpopular and we are really in a fight to the close with the Labour Party...All those people talking about the Conservative Party being a shoe-in for a decent majority, all of that's gone."
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Single opinion polls don't usually get such attention on the Andrew Marr Show.
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Remarkably the interview with David Cameron was surprisingly low on interruptions - only 8 (resulting in a low I.C. of 0.6) - and the interview with Nick Clegg was the tougher of the two (I.C. of 1). Cameron's low score was in complete contrast to the massive 2.1 achieved last time. Why was this? Too much flak for the naked bias displayed last time, and (like Kirsty Wark with Alex Salmond) a need to be seen to make amends this time? Or am I being too cynical here?
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When Clegg launched a stringing attack on Gordon Brown over Afghanistan ("What angers me so much is that Gordon Brown has failed to make this case. He's failed as a war leader"), he drew a surprising comparison, comparing Brown's lack of investment in explaining the mission unfavourably with the Conservative government's strong investment of political capital, time and energy in explaining the Falkland's War to be British public. As soon as Clegg started, I though to myself Marr will have to interrupt this and indeed, just as Clegg was reaching his rhetorical climax ("It shows..."), he did just that, derailing the Lib Dem leader's point & moving it on to something far more congenial to Andrew Marr - the public's disapproval of the Afghan War. It would do to allow praise for Mrs Thatcher's government to go unchecked, would it?*