The Bozza interview was the very last thing I expected to wake up to this morning!

I cannot verify the truth of any of the statements in this interview above.

Maybe this should appear on Tim Shipman’s list of “car crash interviews”, purported to be the greatest interviews in political history (link here)? I remember many of these interviews when they first aired. My personal radio favourite is of George Osborne’s ding dong with Evan Davis, from 6 December 2012 (here).

It is hard to describe how Eddie Mair (@eddiemair) managed to execute such a successful interview. First of all, he did not throw any ‘hissy fits’ at any stage himself; he did not look angry, he was not condescending, he remained polite, and simply gave enough metaphorical rope for the interviewee to hang himself with. It was helped, in my view, by setting up the interview with some standard political questions, which Bozza would have been able to hit for six, but what caused him to be caught out middle stump is interesting. I think he may have underestimated the bowler, hoped perhaps the umpire might have called a ‘wide’ but never did, but I think part of Mair’s success was his ability to bowl a few easy bowls for a few balls in the over, before successfully declaring Bozza out in what turned out to be a maiden over