We shouldn’t treat our politicians like criminals (yes, I’m guilty as charged)

MY MOTHER used to say, ‘John could argue with the Virgin Mary herself’ — and she was probably right.

Contrary to popular assumptions, I don’t set out to have an argument when I interview someone — even if it’s a politician. But I cannot deny that I enjoy arguing.

Nor would I deny I approach people in power with a pretty strong dose of scepticism.

Despite that, I wish my colleagues and I had managed to find a better way of doing political interviews. Indeed, I fear we may have travelled too far from the days of deference to an era of open combat, with too many interviews seen as a gladiator sport

In my early years on Today, I tended to get a little heated. Too heated. I wanted to make my mark, to show I’d take no nonsense from any politician trying to duck my question.

So I did a lot of interrupting, even occasionally raising my voice a little. In other words, I often went over the top and sometimes, to my great shame, lost my temper. I like to think that, as the years went by, I calmed down.

Even so, the temptation — sometimes irresistible — for a Today presenter is to imagine oneself wearing the wig of a prosecuting barrister whose job is to prove the defendant guilty. I’ve done it more often than I care to remember. And I usually wish I hadn’t. If we treat a politician like a suspected felon, why shouldn’t the audience do the same? But is that what we want?

Yes, there will be times when there’s pretty clear evidence that the politician is deliberately trying to mislead the audience.

Yet politicians are not often on trial for some heinous crime. And if we interviewers treat them as though they are, we may be creating the conditions in which cynicism about politics can thrive.

Note, I say cynicism and not scepticism. We should all be sceptical: it’s healthy. But cynicism is the enemy of democracy. And the rise of populist movements across Europe seems to show that the gap between politicians and citizens is growing, not shrinking.

Too often, the success of the main 8.10am interview is judged on whether it has unsettled a politician and trapped them into saying something they hadn’t intended to say — and not on whether it has succeeded in moving the debate forwards.

What we’re really after most of the time is that accursed ‘news line’. Something that might get picked up in the day’s news cycle and the next day’s papers. Ideally, something the poor bloody victim might live to regret.

In other words, too many interviewers (present company included) are too often more concerned with making headlines than with helping the audience understand the issues at stake.

You may say: ‘Haven’t you come to this realisation a bit late, Mr Humphrys?’

Guilty as charged — though I’m not at the sackcloth-and-ashes stage just yet.

So what should we be trying to do on Today? Maybe we should allow politicians to do a bit more explaining — and spend a bit less time forcing them to protest their innocence.

I remember once asking a veteran politician how he thought interviewing had changed over his many years in Parliament.

‘I remember a time when we politicians were given the opportunity to think aloud,’ he told me. ‘We can’t risk that any longer. We’d be taken apart. That’s a pity.’

He was right. In my decades on Today, I struggle to recall a single interview with a senior politician in which they said something along the lines of: ‘Hmm, the Opposition may be right about that — perhaps we should take it on board.’

Nor can I remember ever saying the equivalent of: ‘Ah, fair point — I was probably exaggerating when I said . . .’

Does an interview always have to be so combative? Does there have to be a winner or a loser? If so, the loser may well be the public.