POLITICS SHOW 24/1/10

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Today's Politics Show featured an 8-minute-long, one-to-one interview between Jon Sopel and Harriet Harman (I.C. of 0.9), mirroring last week's 12-minute-long, one-to-one interview with Ed Balls. Poor Chris Grayling, however, had to share his interview with a critic of his policy, barrister Michael Wolkind, thus only getting 5 minutes of interview time (and an I.C. of 1),. This mirrored the fate of Nigel Farage last week, who had to share his interview with a critic of his policy, Salma Yaqoob of Respect. Is this a new trend? Mr Wolkind got away with not answering Jon Sopel's question about whether his client Munir Hussain favours a change in the law (unlike himself). He does, as does Mr Hussain's solicitor Razi Shah.
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Elsewhere there was an interesting report from David Thompson on the Conservative's 'free school' policy. The aim, as emphasized by David's commentary, was probably to highlight 'Tory splits' (a running theme in his reports for The Politics Show).
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Credit where credit is due though. Unlike Westminster Hour (see elsewhere), The Politics Show is (so far) being fair in its use of journalists to preview the week ahead. Last week it was Allegra Stratton of The Guardian. This week it was Julia Hartley-Brewer of The Sunday Express. A similar pattern was discernable towards the close of last year. I will (of course) be watching to see if this continues. (I will be listening to Westminster Hour too. Not even they would dare to feature yet another Guardianista-type tonight, surely.)
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