My daily beat through the Radio 4 news neighbourhood has (with 'The World Tonight' still to come) been dominated by Labour and the Lib Dems, and no-one at the BBC has been mugging any of them. What a lot of soft, boring interviews with puny interruption coefficients to match!
Jim Naughtie talked to boring Alan Beith of the Lib Dems for 3 minutes 25 seconds, asked him only three questions and let him drone on without interuption, scoring a perfect 0. He only asked Labour's John McFall (another BBC favourite) two questions, despite a 2 minute 27 second-long interview, again without interruption (another perfect 0).
Even Sarah Montague was as gentle as a lamb. She also scored an I.C. of 0 with the dullest of interviews with Labour's international development minister and prize bore Douglas Alexander (which went on..and on..for only 4 minutes 42 seconds). She did interrupt ex-Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown once (achieving a 0.3 IC), but this interruption was not a challenging (more a clarifying) one.
Martha Kearney on 'The World at One' was hanging with her boys, David Miliband and Peter Mandelson. Labour and Labour. Miliband got 6 minutes and 28 seconds and was interrupted (oh so gently) just once (resulting in a tiny 0.2 IC) while Mandy got 5 minutes and 53 seconds with no interruptions, scoring an I.C. of, you guessed it, 0 (There's no such thing as a free lunch - except when your a leftie appearing on 'The World at One'.)
Even Eddie Mair was laying off the stimulants on 'PM', interrupting Labour's armed forces minister Bill Rammell only once in 3 minutes 26 seconds (0.3) and his business colleague Nils Blythe gave Alistair Darling 4 minutes 53 seconds of our precious time and another free ride to boot (0 yet again).
Will the 'World Tonight' kick some political ass? Will any leftwing interviewee be interrupted more than once? Will any Tory, or UKIPer put in an appearance on Radio 4 today? I can hardly wait to find out. Goodnight. zzzzzzzzzzz
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UPDATE: There were no politicians interviewed on the 'World Tonight'.
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