As part of its tribute to Brian Walden, who sadly passed away this week, Radio 4's PM programme relayed the thoughts of the public and invited comments from today's professionals. The former were mostly appreciative of Walden's style, courteous, giving his politician guests time to reply, yet probing and persistent. It all depended on thorough homework, of course. The professionals all said that it could not work now, that politicians were all coached and you needed to be confrontational, interrupting frequently. Well, Margaret Thatcher was thoroughly coached - packaged, one might say - by Sir Tim Bell among others, yet Walden managed to extract confidences from her that no other political interviewer had.
But after Weekend World finished and well into the period when this coaching was said to be taking place, there was another man who had mastered the art of the apparently gentle interview which nevertheless dug beneath the veneer of politicians. Moreover, he carried no political baggage. I refer to Patrick Hannan who died too soon nearly ten years ago. It is the nation's loss the (presumably because of BBC politics) he was not given more exposure on networked TV and radio.
We would all be better informed if there were more of their ilk on air today.
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