The “Paxmanisation” of political interviews has not made them better

The biggest tussle of this increasingly depressing election campaign has not been between the party leaders, but between the BBC and Boris Johnson. Having seen his opponents grilled, and in some cases fried, by Andrew Neil, the Prime Minister is seemingly not that keen on jumping into the flames himself.

He was happy though to appear on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday to take part in a rather bad-tempered interview. That is despite the BBC having previously said that it would not allow him on the programme until he confirmed his interview with Andrew Neil. The Beeb changed its mind within 24 hours, as news broke of the terror attack on London Bridge.

The grim reality is that for Johnson, appearing on prime-time television in the wake of such an event was a good opportunity to look statesman-like. Marr, on the other hand, can’t be too pleased that he is considered the BBC’s “soft” interviewer.

Perhaps that is why he chose to be so aggressive. The almost 30-minute interview was antagonistic from the off, and almost entirely incomprehensible. Marr kept telling Johnson that he would not allow him to waffle on, which is fair enough, but all too often the presenter simply ended up stopping his subject when he was actually trying to respond.

At one point, Marr was so busy demanding that the Prime Minister answer his question that he failed to hear that Johnson was in fact in the process of giving his answer. It was almost enough to make Johnson a sympathetic character. Almost.

What made the whole confrontation weirder is that this approach is not really Marr’s usual style. Tough and probing yes, but never so hyper-aggressive. Worse still, he had vowed not to do this. Writing a Spectator diary column prior to the interview, Marr said: “I admit it’s a temptation. But as compared with fact-primed, carefully planned and constructed interviews — of the kind Andrew Neil does — to go for ‘car crash’ moments would be folly and a disgrace. It’s a temptation (just wallow in the Twitter applause) which must be resisted. If I’ve fallen into it, I hereby apologise.”

Apology accepted.

That Marr, despite his best intentions, felt such a macho approach necessary, or defaulted to it under pressure, shows something else too — the deep-seated Paxmanisation of our political coverage. It began with Jeremy Paxman’s famous clobbering of Michael Howard, when he asked the former Tory leader the same question no fewer than 12 times.

Interviewers now feel they have to be aggressive for the sake of, and it is not necessarily as effective as they might think. Just ask Emily Maitlis. Her skewering of Prince Andrew was no less powerful for being softly spoken. In fact, quite the opposite. She gave Prince Andrew just enough rope with which to tie himself in knots.

Marr was aware and admiring of his BBC colleague’s tactics. He wrote in that same Spectator column that the Prince Andrew interview, while highly effective, “contained no showmanship on Emily’s part whatsoever”.

Emma Barnett, too, has proven to be one of the strongest interviewers around. She’s done this not by haranguing her subjects, but by being exquisitely well prepared. It means that almost no error from a subject goes unpunished. Fist banging not required. Indeed, as Marr noted, while Neil himself is certainly tough, it largely comes from being well researched, not just shouting.

Those approaches, I would argue, provide much more value to viewers than the display we saw on Sunday morning, or indeed Julie Etchingham’s constant interruptions during the ITV leaders’ debate. I appreciate that she had to give a fair amount of time to both Corbyn and Johnson, but allowing them to finish their sentences every so often might not have gone amiss.

Whether the Prime Minister will actually agree to sit down with Andrew Neil, as all his opponents have, remains to be seen. Neil tweeted on Tuesday that “there are not really any negotiations going on. We’re simply waiting on a date, time and venue. As we have for several weeks. So far — not a sausage.” If he does eventually get his man, let us hope he takes a more productive approach than his namesake did on Sunday morning.