DON'T DO IT NICK! PLEASE DON'T BACK THE TORIES!

*
Just listen to the easy ride James Naughtie gave Nick Clegg on this morning's Today programme: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8565000/8565697.stm
*
Mr Clegg's first answer, in which (at Naughtie's invitation) he listed his party's four main priorities, lasted 1 minute 15 seconds. It wasn't interrupted. Can you imagine James Naughtie allowing David Cameron such a soft start? Not in a million years! The whole interview lasted over 8 minutes, contained 4 interruptions and resulted in a low I.C. of 0.5.
*
Naughtie is known for being a very biased interviewer and banged away at one point in particular: Why won't the Liberal Democrats rule out supporting a minority government after the election if the other party is committed to implementing 'masochistic' cuts this year? He meant, of course, the Conservative Party. Though the interview was generally friendly, a little warmth could be heard in Labour Jim's voice as he demanded to know the answer to this. It was blindingly obvious what answer he wanted to hear! He even returned to the same question after apparently having moved on to something else and even his last question was just another way of putting the same thing!
*
I did have to laugh though at his hasty withdrawal from an attempted interruption (03.25 into the clip) at the very second when he realised that Nick Clegg was being mean about the Tories and clearly decided to let him go with the attack!
*