How I’m approaching my party leader interviews
BBCWhy don’t they just answer the question? I’m often asked this by people who watch or listen to the interviews I do.
Believe me, no-one feels the frustration more than I do when I hear a politician ignore, evade or dodge a question and simply read out a pre-planned “line to take” provided for them by party spin doctors. Or launch an attack on their opponents.
Nevertheless, I passionately believe in the value of watching or listening to the people who want to lead our country being quizzed and tested and challenged about their policies, their promises and their personalities over an extended period of time.
In the Panorama Interviews, I will have just under 30 minutes to ask the prime minister and his opponents the questions which I hope are the ones you would want to ask, given the chance. You can send in your ideas at Your Vote Your Voice – and use the form at the end of this article.
We won’t, of course, be able to cover everything and you may be irritated by what’s left unasked or unsaid. But I guarantee that the politicians won’t know the questions before I ask them, and what they say will be broadcast in full. In a studio with no autocue or mobile phone or notes from advisers, there will be no hiding place.
That’s one reason I admire Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir Starmer, Sir Ed Davey, John Swinney, Nigel Farage, Adrian Ramsay and Rhun ap Iorwerth for agreeing to take part – and they have, even though we haven’t yet got dates for all of them. There are plenty of leaders in plenty of countries who wouldn’t take the risk of saying the wrong thing in the wrong way at a time when a slip can cost votes and, ultimately, the chance of power.
I don’t just mean leaders like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping who run Russia and China. I also mean leaders like Boris Johnson who refused to face interviewer Andrew Neil at the last general election.
I grew up with the giants of interviewing – men like Sir Robin Day and Brian Walden. One of my first jobs was as a researcher for David Dimbleby, and I later became his producer and editor before sitting alongside him on election night.
When I started at the Today programme I sat alongside the man they all feared – John Humphrys. I now watch and learn from my Today colleague Mishal Husain, and Victoria Derbyshire on Newsnight, and Laura Kuenssberg and Kirsty Wark as well as so many others.
So what, you may wonder, is my definition of a good interview? It is one in which you do get some answers from those who want your vote, and if you don’t get proper answers then I make clear that that is the case. It is an interview and not an interrogation in which they get the chance to make their case. It is not about me looking for a “gotcha” moment that can be snipped out and clipped and shared on social media. It focuses on the big questions facing our country, and not the trivia of a row which makes headlines on a particular day.
It is, in short, a grown-up conversation which, I hope, helps those who don’t read politicians speeches and analyse their speeches as I do for a living, and who feel frustrated by the endlessly repeated soundbites, to gain a better understanding of the choice we face.
I wanted to be a journalist when I saw my grandfather – a German Jew who fled the Nazis and later had to flee the Communists who’d taken over China where he found refuge – listen with reverence to the news from the BBC.
I’ve never forgotten that for all we may shout and curse politicians, we are privileged to live in a country in which we hold their fate in our hands, and not the other way around.
The Panorama specials with Nick Robinson will start at 20:00 BST on Monday 10 June on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
