The perfect Sunday menu: grilled minister, or something over easy?
Viewers who enjoy watching politicians squirm once had the likes of interviewers Brian Walden and John Humphrys to watch on the sabbath. Now there is no choice. But does it matter?
After last month's final edition of ITV's The Sunday Programme, its weekly early morning current affairs show, the channel that once produced Weekend World and Walden was left without any specifically political output. It scrapped The Sunday Edition, co-hosted by The Observer's Andrew Rawnsley, at the end of last year, leaving the BBC, which has to cover Westminster under the terms of its licence fee, as the only major broadcaster to offer extensive political coverage.
ITV has won its argument with regulator Ofcom, which accepts that the broadcaster can no longer afford to make expensive political programmes that few watch. But this marks the end of an era in which both channels produced heavyweight political shows based around a single, long-form interview with a front-line politician. A decade ago, the BBC's On The Record, presented by John Humphrys, and Breakfast with Frost quizzed ministers and opposition spokesmen at length, although Humphrys's combative manner differed hugely from David Frost's more amiable style.
Their demise is lamented by many, including Brian Walden, who hosted Weekend World and its successor Walden, conducting ambitious interviews that were forensically researched and executed. 'I just did them. I didn't theorise about them,' Walden says. 'But those that do say it is all about attention span - that these long, tedious interviews are exactly what we don't want. It's a soundbite world. If people are too bored to watch, there's not much I can do.'
Walden claims executives have never been keen on political shows. 'They say it's because they don't attract viewers, but in their heart of hearts they don't really want to do [this type of] public service broadcasting. It might upset someone very powerful. And, secondly, they think it is very, very dull.'
Many blame the BBC for lowering the bar by introducing the sort of soft-focus chats that Frost pioneered. David Cox, former editor of Weekend World and former head of current affairs at LWT, says: 'Politicians went around saying "we're devastated by these soft interviews". They said that because they loved them.'
The BBC defends its political output. Stephen Mitchell, deputy director of BBC News, says: 'You don't employ someone like Andrew Marr [the BBC's current Sunday interviewer] unless you want an element of robust political coverage. I've been in the gallery and I know that's how it's regarded, because some politicians find it uncomfortable and they don't hang around too long.'
But some figures at the corporation privately concede that the demise of shows like On the Record has left a gap in political culture that helps to explain the public's lack of faith in those that govern them. One highly placed source says senior politicians regard a lengthy grilling as a test of political virility. Big beasts like John Prescott and Margaret Thatcher were keen to appear - and Cox insists many still would: 'David Miliband's a cocky little bastard. He'd love to show he could do the Walden interview better than his brother,' he claims.
Cox insists the art of interrogation is being lost, with programmes like The Andrew Marr Show, which replaced Breakfast with Frost, too often letting politicians off the hook, while slots on Today or Newsnight are too short to reveal meaningful truths.
Accusations of dumbing down have become a cliche, and Cox concedes: 'The problem [with highbrow shows] is that not many people want to watch them.' But he claims that doesn't matter so long as they make headlines on Monday. 'They do their job even though not many people are watching. It gets back into the system and politicians become wary about lying.' Their return would, he insists, go a long way to restoring the integrity of public life: 'If we can't talk to our leaders and they can't talk to us, society will disintegrate.'
There is a different view. Greg Dyke, who replaced On the Record with The Politics Show, a more accessible magazine-style programme, when he was BBC director-general, says: 'For ITV it was never an audience thing; it was what you did to get the franchise. The BBC started them because they saw how much publicity they were getting.' But Dyke says the format had become tired: 'Politicians got to know how to use them, and that made them less interesting.'
Walden says he would love to see a 'first-rate' political show back on TV to test that theory. 'Evading [questions] is not a good idea. Look at the damage it has done to the Prime Minister. He has never learnt to be interviewed properly.'
He claims politicians benefit from submitting to lengthy interviews designed to test their arguments to destruction: 'If you can't do that with an interviewer, you won't be able to do it with the electorate. Some would say it serves [Gordon Brown] right, although I'm a kinder person.'
Walden had several bruising encounters with Thatcher (see box), who rarely shied away from confrontation. 'There are many criticisms of Mrs Thatcher, but the one thing that's never said in her favour - and it ought to be - was that she was incredibly frank in interviews,' says Walden, who extracted some memorable revelations from her, including her famous endorsement of Victorian values. 'The spin doctors would say that's the reason she was so unpopular, of course.'
Dyke blames the PR men in the Blair government for killing off the long-form interview: 'There are fewer politicians breaking ranks. Alastair Campbell ... wasn't going to let anyone go on and say something they could regret.'
Not everyone agrees that politicians had figured out how to survive a long interrogation; that's impossible if it's conducted properly, according to Cox. However, even he concedes: 'What did for Walden was that politicians got wise to it and wouldn't come on, so we had to [resort] to more and more marginal figures.' In the Thatcher era, reluctant ministers could be dragged on screen with a call to Downing Street, he claims, but that is difficult to imagine today.
The BBC points out that long interviews still take place and that Newsnight or Today are extended when appropriate, and Walden says he admires the current crop of interrogators, including Humphrys and Jeremy Paxman, saying they have adapted to the limited time at their disposal. Nor does he agree that a 'softly, softly' approach is necessarily wrong. 'Frost used to say: "If you want a man to take off his jacket, you don't need the wind, you need the sun",' he says.
Others insist that, whatever the political climate, the demise of the long-form interview means politicians are less likely than ever to find themselves exposed to the public gaze.
Hostile highlights
October 1982 Sir Robin Day grilled Defence Secretary John Nott about budget cuts. 'Why should the public believe you,' he asked, 'a transient, here-today and, if I may say so, gone-tomorrow politician?' Nott took off his microphone and walked off the set.
November 1989 As many in her party were turning against her, Brian Walden asked Mrs Thatcher: 'You come over as being someone who one of your backbenchers said is slightly off her trolley, authoritarian, domineering, refusing to listen to anybody else. Why?' She replied: 'If anyone's coming over as domineering in this interview, it's you. It's you.' They never spoke again.
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