Yesterday, it was David Cameron. In a knockabout interview with John Humphrys on the Today Programme, the leader of the opposition conceded that he hadn't quite got rid of Punch and Judy politics as promised. "I will absolutely hold up my hands on that," said Cameron. Hilariously, and revoltingly, he felt moved to translate this into the modern street lingo he does rather seem to relish. "I'll 'fess up to you, if you like," he smarmed. This morning, Gordon Brown was 'fessing up to Humphrys The Confessor. Not once, but twice.
"We made two mistakes," Brown conceded, as if trying to outdo Cameron on something, anything. But this was a very different interview, and the concession fell flat. Where Humphrys had been jovial and combative with Cameron, relishing a worthy opponent for a verbal tussle ("You are impossible!" cried Cameron at one point), he sounded only wearily exasperated with Brown.
It was noticeable that Humphrys spoke far less, too, as if Brown was being left to dig himself out of a deep hole, just to see if he could. On the Today Programme website, you can listen to a post-Budget interview from 2007 between the two, and the difference is astonishing, with Brown commanding and energised, and Humphrys bothering to argue. Today, on Today, Brown's voice and tone were beleaguered, and he said "John" far too much ("John, John, please, please John, John please"), even though Humphrys hardly needed taming.
The two encounters this week serve as a reminder of what a fine political interviewer Humphrys is. He has many detractors, but these interviews were revealing portraits composed by antithetical means. Both politicians struggled - Cameron, as Camilla Redmond's review points out, with mention of the Bullingdon club, which he wasn't expecting in a debate that had been going so swimmingly - and whether Humphrys verbally punched or nudged, he was doing the revealing, not the party leaders. He can be maddeningly tenacious, but with the big interviews, Humphrys remains mightily impressive.
