Ukip leader Nigel Farage cannot be excluded from the party leader TV debates because he is the “most high profile politician in the land”, according to the BBC’s John Humphrys.
Humphrys, presenter of BBC Radio 4’s influential Today programme, said the presence of Farage, included in broadcasters’ plans for the pre-election debates for the first time, would be more difficult for Ed Miliband than it would be for David Cameron.
“You can’t do otherwise,” Humphrys said of Farage’s inclusion in the proposals published by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky News on Monday.
“I know [Ukip] only have one member of parliament but to exclude the most high profile politician in the land from that forum, you simply couldn’t do it,” Humphrys told the Radio Festival in Salford on Monday.
“I expect it rather plays to Cameron’s strength, I suspect Miliband will find it more difficult to deal with. Farage is going to outflank Cameron on the right but Cameron can sort of live with that by making concessions.
“With Miliband ... it is going to be very difficult for them to be constantly saying ‘that’s rubbish’ because that’s not playing with the electorate. It’s going to be quite difficult.”
‘David Frost’s gave guests an easy ride’
In a wide-ranging interview with fellow BBC radio presenter Nicky Campbell, Humphrys also criticised the late Sir David Frost’s interviewing style as “damaging” and giving guests an “easy ride”.
Humphrys said he “hated” competing with Frost’s Sunday morning ITV programme because the veteran interviewer, who died last year, would beat him to all the big name guests.
He said politicians would choose Frost on Sunday ahead of BBC1’s On The Record, which Humphrys presented between 1993 and 2002, because they knew they could “get away with a lot of stuff with David Frost” that they could not on the BBC1 programme “partly because we had a longer slot”.
“The fact is they knew, there wasn’t a deal done I suspect, I don’t know, perhaps there was – I very much doubt it – which said I will come on if you allow me to deliver this particular message,” Humphrys said.
“I think it’s highly unlikely that was ever spoken ... But if there is the implicit assumption, the implicit agreement between interviewer and interviewee, even if it’s mistaken that those are the terms of the engagement, then I think that’s damaging. There were many occasions I thought when David would give his interviewees an easy ride.
“That doesn’t mean he didn’t get anything out of the interview, he often did and it would be bloody good and it might well make headlines in the following morning’s papers but the fact is that is what that politician went on there in order to say, that’s the important thing.”
Humphrys may not have entirely enamoured himself with TV colleagues when said his “brain had been in neutral for a very long time” as a newsreader on BBC1’s Nine O’Clock News. “Don’t tell Huw [Edwards] I said that,” he added.
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