WHEN DAVID MET ANDY

*
Last Sunday's Andrew Marr interview with Gordon Brown scored a fairly low interruption coefficient of 0.8. prompting me to set him a challenge for this week, when he announced he was going to be interviewing David Cameron:

Over to you then Andrew Marr! I will be watching (and counting) next Sunday. Behave yourself, score an I.C. somewhere around 0.8 & you'll prove me wrong!!!

Did he prove me wrong? How did Mr Cameron fair with Andrew Marr?
*
Well, adding in all the fragmentary bits at the end (on the sofa with Maureen Lipman and Chris Evans), the interview lasted just over 27 minutes - a little shorter (by about three minutes or so) than the one with Brown. Though a little shorter, it still contained significantly more interruptions -38 (compared to 25 against Brown), giving the interview an I.C. of 1.4. Though not on the scale of the 2.1 Marr scored against Dave during the party conferences, this was still a much tougher interview than last week's. Marr has not proved me wrong after all! Oh well, he had his chance.
*
Andrew Marr also failed another test I set him last week.
http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com/2010/01/challenge-to-andrew-marr.html

He (Brown) also got a lot of time to project himself as an international statesman. If Cameron becomes prime minister, what will he do about Yemen, or Somalia, or Afghanistan? Will Marr ask him about this next week? Or will he not give Cameron the chance to pose as an international-statesman-in-waiting, and stick to questioning him almost exclusively on domestic issues instead (cuts, cuts, cuts,
Eton, cuts)?

Well, though Eton didn't come up - though almost inevitably Lord Ashcroft did!! - it was indeed domestic issues, and above all cuts, that dominated the interview. The one very brief exception concerned the EU. And yes, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, about Yemen, Somalia, or Afghanistan. Marr, as predicted, gave Cameron no chance whatsoever to pose as an international-statesman-in-waiting. If viewers wanted to know what David Cameron would do, were he elected prime minister, about the Afghan War or the international terrorism threat - two of the biggest issues facing anyone who would be prime minister and facing us too -, they would be none the wiser this morning, thanks to Andrew Marr.
*
Next week it will be Nick Clegg. I predict (going off past experience) an I.C for Cleggy somewhere between the 0.8 for Gordon Brown and the 1.4 for David Cameron. How about 1.1!!??
*
*
The paper review this week featured two active Labour supporters, actress Maureen Lipman and socialist historian Tristram Hunt. (Why?). Maureen Lipman felt sorry for 'poor' Jack Straw, who is, she said, being 'crucified by the Daily Mail' , and both guests and presenter glided over the Peter Watt story with alacrity ("this character", Marr called him in passing). When Hunt used the Iris Robinson story to opine about the dark hypocrisy beneath moral conservatism, the other two 'mmm'-ed and nodded their agreement.
*
*
Two things made my stomach sink this morning. The first was Gordon Brown saying that if he wins the election he will serve a full-term as prime minister. Urgh, what a thought! The second was David Cameron telling Marr that he was a big fan of the BBC. He did have some caveats though, and there's a faint glimmer of hope in that. BBC bias was not among his little list of caveats, which is worrying. Still, he may just have been being polite! We can hope.