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I need some smelling salts. Who would have thought that an Andrew Marr Show with both Alistair Darling and George Osborne on would have produced an I.C. of 0.9 for Mr Darling and a mere 0.1 for George Osborne? Not me for one! The interview with George Osborne did, however, take place over a link with a two-second delay, which makes interviewing a lot trickier (and interruptions less likely) and Darling did get very nearly twice as long to speak (14 minutes exactly) than Osborne (7 minutes 15 seconds). Still, I need those smelling salts!
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If we get a new Tory Government in 2010 and the Andrew Marr show manages to get both Tory and Labour shadow chancellors onto the same programme, it would be interesting to see if timings switch and the Tory chancellor subsequently gets twice as much interview time as the shadow chancellor.
ReplyDeleteThe BBC do say that the Government automatically gets proportionally more time than the opposition, but I suspect that if roles swap then the BBC will change their minds and allocate equal (if not more) time to Labour.
When I heard that both were to be on today's show, I immediately guessed that Labour's interview would follow the Tories to give a chance for Labour to counter anything that George said - the BBC is usually so predictable!