Last night’s Newsnight was real watch-through-your-fingers stuff. It began with a package on “Catgate”, which started with a reference to Theresa May’s kitten heels; and ended with a group of Tory female activists asking Jeremy Paxman why no men had been asked on the “women’s special edition” of the programme.
But the undoubted highlight — or lowlight, depending on your perspective — was Boris Johnson’s interview with Paxman. The tone was set by Paxman describing his guest as the “hairdresser’s despair Boris Johnson” and things only got worse from there.
During the course of the encounter, all the following things happened:
- Boris Johnson poked Paxman quite hard in the chest.
- The word “piffle” was used.
- In a discussion over whether Britain was “broken”, Johnson used the camera as an example; leading Paxman to ask him incredulously, “Bits of Britain are scuffed?” (this discussion lasted about a minute).
- Paxman asked Johnson whether he considered himself the intellectual inferior of David Cameron. “INFERIOR?” chortled Johnson.
- “I’m trying to help you,” said Paxman to Johnson at one point, as if this were the worst therapy session ever.
- Johnson joked that Cameron was thick because he did PPE (politics, philosophy and economics) at Oxford, rather than Classics.
- Asked how he differed from Cameron, Johnson replied: “I’m older, I’m heavier . . . I beat him at tennis the other day.” When pressed further, he added: “This is a really good ‘when did you stop beating your wife?’ question.”
- Boris went into an extended rant about how he would volunteer to be Paxman’s campaign manager in a run for the Tory leadership.
None of this was helped by the fact that the set creaked ominously throughout, like a galleon in Hornblower. I suspect it might have been straining to get away. Plenty of viewers certainly must have been.
No wonder this encounter was described by Tim Jonze as “the Frost/Nixon we deserve”. You can watch it in full here.
Content from our partners
Related
Join the debate
Subscribe here to comment