MARR-GINAL SEATS

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As aghast characters in genteel sit coms say, 'Ye gods!'
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Andrew Marr's interview with Gordon Brown was one that plumbed new depths in deliberate shallowness and bias.
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When Marr next interviews David Cameron what's the betting that most of the interview will be spent discussing Conservative policies, especially cuts, cuts, cuts, and that Marr will hammer away at where those cuts are going to be, exactly how much will be cut from each spending department, whose jobs are going to be at risk from Tory cuts (etc)? Was Brown asked about Labour policy on cuts, or pressed on our ruinous national debt? Not at all!!!!
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Marr began by asking about the ash cloud. (With David Cameron, or course, he might well have begun by asking about the ashcroft). I suppose that's fair enough. Brown is still prime minister and this is a serious matter, though it did give Brown the chance to play his favourite role - the statesman-in-a-time-of-crisis.
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The one area of serious policy discussed at some length was immigration. Marr did press Brown somewhat on the figures, but without bringing up the issue of Brown's ongoing 'manipulation' of the figures. Brown slid easily through Marr's fingers.
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Marr then turned to the campaign and asked him "What did you learn from that experience?" Brown read out the entire Labour manifesto in response, uninterrupted. When Brown spun the following gentle question about his presentation skills into an attack on Tory economic plans, Marr introduced "a pretty astonishing story for a lot of people from The Sunday Times this morning about Goldman Sachs, going to pay massive, massive bonuses again to a huge number of people based on three months work." Brown slid into an easy attack on bankers, adopting his statesmanlike pose again. His own share of the blame in shaping the banking climate in this country prior to the economic bust was slid past by Marr, who asked "You've said to me yourself before that you regret not getting more of a handle on bank regulation in the past. Is it because the political class generally were sort of mesmerised by bankers, and their language and their glamour and so on". The 'political class'!! Who was in power Andrew? Labour! Brown struck a moral pose again.
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Almost all of the rest the interview discussed the frothier side of politics, with question after question about Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems and hung parliaments. How will you deal with Nick Clegg next time? Do you dislike David Cameron on a personal level? Suddenly the interruptions - which for the first half of the interview were rare things - became common. Odd how that happens with Andrew Marr and Labour politicians! Interruptions are thin on the ground when it matters on the big issues of the day, but thick on the ground on more gossipy topics that might be absorbing to the Westminster Village but which, by pure coincidence, don't run too much of a risk of stinging Labour in the backside if pursued by an interviewer.
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As further proof, this second half of the interview did pause briefly to discuss Afghanistan. Marr interrupted just once here and, after spending less than two minutes on this most important of subjects, moved on for a very long, final fling on Nick Clegg and hung parliaments again, and Brown's future and what the Queen's role would be if no-one won a majority, blah, blah, blah.
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Now the interruptions really flew, as speculatative question followed speculative question. I agreed with Brown (yeah, I know!) when he protested that competing visions and policies rather than speculation are likely to be of more value and interest to the viewer. They are to this viewer! Yet on Marr went, repeating himself. Brown had already said, more than once, that he thought the election was 'wide open'. For some very strange reason, towards the end of the interview, he asked Brown if he thought the election was 'wide open'?!
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Call me cynical, but all this sort of repetitive flim-flam seemed to be a way for Marr to avoid asking Brown difficult questions about the deficit, the truth behind the unemployment figures, cuts, crime, education, Europe, health, etc. This time would have been far better spent talking about some of those.
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Amusingly - and annoyingly - the interruptions suddenly and conspicuously stopped when Brown began attacking the Conservatives on inheritance tax. You could hear Marr withdrawing from what might have been another question about hung parliaments just to give Brown the chance to make his silly little point.
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Here's how long was spent on each topic?:
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Hung parliaments, campaign, the Queen - 12m 18s (48.5%)
Immigration - 5m 21s (21%)
Bankers - 3m 11s (12.5%)
Ash cloud - 2m 40s (10.5%)
Afghanistan - 1m 56s (7.5%)
Cuts, deficit - 0 m 0s (0%)
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Due to all those late interruptions on matters of flotsam and jetsam, the overall interruption coefficient was precisely 1.