How not to interview

One of the first things Alastair Campbell said during his interview with Andrew Marr this morning was that he hasn't included everything in the book because he didn't want to publish something that may be "damaging to Labour".

Now - given this massive admission - the first response of any serious, and impartial, interviewer would be to question what could be considered damaging wouldn't it? Now I realise that most of these events that could be considered damaging are common knowledge amongst journalists and popular topics at the various Islington set dinner parties, but they are not known to Joe Public and, at the very least, it would be expected of any serious interviewer to pursue the fact that there are aspects of the Labour government which, should they be revealed to us, the stupid public, would make us think twice about voting for Labour in the future.

Not Andrew Marr. No, Mr Left Liberal let that little titbit pass and preferred, instead to allow Campbell to apply his usual "spin". On the positive side, at least Marr didn't resort to the obsequious bowing and scraping that he reserved for Harold Pinter - a display so reverential that it could have been a priest kneeling before his god.

Which, in some ways, it was.