WHEN MARR MET GEORGE OSBORNE

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An opinion poll for The Daily Politics (Friday's election) showed that a certain proportion of the public remains confused about Conservative economic policy. The BBC has been absolutely relentless in telling us that the Conservatives have been confused - and confusing - and lacking in clarity (etc) on the matter in programme after programme. Andrew Marr has always been one of the keenest advocates of this line of attack on the Tories - outside the government. Keen watchers of his programme (for whatever reason) will have heard him tell Tory spokesmen of very stripe, on countless editions of his show, that their policies on this issue or that issue are confused and not clear. Nothing that happens in the course of the interview (however clear the Tory spokesman may be) will make Marr change tack.
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So it came as no surprise to me that this was the man's first question this morning to George Osborne: "One of your colleagues was quoted in 'The Times' yesterday as saying the problem is everyone knows there's going to have to be deep cuts but you can't scare the electorate and that's where the slight confusion in the Conservative message has come from." This line of questioning continued for many minutes (as it always does), with Marr at one stage telling Mr Osborne (using The Telegraph as cover), "you need to be crystal-clear and you're not being" and, shortly afterwards, "Just not sure exactly how big a choice it is, because you won't tell us."

When Mr Obsorne was very clear about cutting Corporation Tax, spelling out how it would be done, precisely where the savings would come from and exactly how much it would cost, Marr was not happy. His next question ploughed on, at a higher pitch, with the same old line about: "you won't tell us". I've seen all his interviews with Alistair Darling and he never gets anything like this sort of treatment. On and on it went, with Marr getting wilder and wilder in his body language, loudly interrupting and contradicting ("No we won't because you won't tell us!", "I'm not taking about the values, I'm talking about the numbers!). This whole line of attack took up nearly twelve minutes.
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If you could have predicted all that, there's something else that was even more predictable: Marr asking yet again about Lord Ashcroft (though he bungled his initial attack here by naming Stuart Wheeler, the wonderful UKIP donor, instead of Lord Ashcroft!!). Marr asked if there was "any chance at all of you coming clean on Lord Ashcroft?" At last George Osborne 'grew a small pair' and said what I would have said as a new wave of interruptions was beginning to break over him: "I notice you never ask Labour politicians sitting here about the tax status of some of their very big donors." How true! Marr got very excited in response, his arms flying about like Mr Tickle, and immediately interrupted loudly, "I'll do you a deal now. If you'll tell me in clear terms about Lord Ashcroft's tax status, I promise the next Labour politician sitting there I will go after them on that. It's a fair offer!" George's 'pair' shrank again, as he failed to say exactly what needed saying here: "What's fair about that?!?! You've been asking us about this for months, but you've never asked any Labour politicians about Lord Paul. You explain that Andrew! Is it because you're a Labour supporter? Will you come clean about that!!"
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Come on George Osborne, stop being so nice!!!
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The resultant interruption coefficient was a high 2.0.