And, at the last, the Bleat of the Year award for the most ludicrous whinge about a broadcast interview goes to Andrew Pierce of the Daily Mail.
“Adopting an aggressive, even menacing tone, [Mishal] Husain constantly cut across the increasingly exasperated foreign secretary with little evidence of the impartiality the BBC claims it is so proud of in its journalists. It seemed all too clear where her sympathies lay …
“The low point came when [Boris] Johnson scorned the idea Diane Abbott, as home secretary in a Labour government, would have the skills to deal with a major terrorist attack.
“It was too much for Husain, 44, who jumped in with a good impression of a teacher disciplining an unruly child, saying: ‘No, no, please stop talking.’ Johnson, clearly taken aback, said: ‘But you have invited me on your show to talk.’” Though also, as anyone who studies the transcript may conclude, to answer relevant questions. Aggressive, menacing? Ah! Poor baby…
• Fairness and balance enforced by broadcasting law? It was, as always, a virtue and a tremendous TV turn-off. See Andrew Neil take on Theresa and then the hapless, totally irrelevant Nuttall. Wince as that earnest lady from Plaid burnishes her three-seat credentials across the nation. F and B means reach for the remote. It also means presenting debates in uselessly primary colours.
Quite the most horrid story of the lot came from Matthew Parris in the Times, who’d just written a column about voting for May. He was long booked to appear with Polly Toynbee on the Marr show but that booking got called off. Holding your nose didn’t pass as a primary colour. Nor does honest doubt. How do you have a standard slanging match if one side’s heart isn’t in it?
