Andrew Marr's descent into the gutter

It is quite extraordinary to hear the justifications being made for Andrew Marr's decision to ask Gordon Brown whether he took pills for depression yesterday, even after the rumours spread on some blogs had been categorically denied by Downing Street. I am astonished that my old friend Barney Jones, who edits the programme, thought this fair game. This was the sort of gutter journalism from which the programme is usually immune, and its absence is one reason I watch the programme fairly religiously.

The sole purpose of the question was to embarrass the Prime Minister and ensure that any headlines in today's newspapers focused on this issue rather than what was otherwise a strong interview by the PM with a good policy announcement on the banks attached to it. As Alastair Campbell put it on his blog:

I know it will give him the passing satisfaction of pats on the back from journos whose backs he pats when they come on to do their 'excellent, as ever' reviews of the papers. But it was low stuff. I'm sure Andrew would agree that everyone has certain areas of their life that they'd prefer not to be asked about live on TV.

Isn't there a good reason why so few top Tories appear on Marr?

Iain is fulminating again about the dearth of shadow ministers on the BBC. But it isn't the BBC's fault that the Shadow Cabinet is so lacking in strong figures, is it? Apart from William Hague, Kenneth Clarke and Michael Gove, they are a bunch of lightweights with far fewer strong politicians than the cabinet.

The Marr programme is intended to feature interesting interviews, not PPBs, though I concede that we should see Andrew Lansley properly interrogated about why he thinks the best thing for the NHS would be to allow arrogant consultants to dump on patients from a great height or Theresa May questioned about the Tories' backtracking on welfare reform (though I suspect that's not what Iain has in mind).

But given the choice between having a minister who is doing something and a shadow minister who has nothing original to say, who can blame Marr for having Ian Rankin or Hugh Orde on instead. The truth is that the dearth of interesting shadow ministers says more about the Tories than the BBC.

A good start by Gordon, but how did Marr get out of No 10 so quickly?

Gordon Brown was in confident form for his New Year interview with Andrew Marr. And the decision to allow the whole programme to be broadcast from Downing Street played to his strengths, not least in the wrap up minutes with Michael Sheen and Anne Robinson.

But, as one who worked in the building, I am puzzled as to how Andrew Marr managed to leg it down the stairs and out the front door of No 10 as quickly as he apparently did in the closing sequence. In these days when 'noddies' are banned, surely this wasn't a bit we filmed earlier?

Question Time for Cameron

Well done to Andrew Marr for finally starting to ask some questions of David Cameron. Not that he got any answers. But it made a pleasant change from the regular PPBs for the Tories on the Today programme, where Cameron is effectively asked in best 1950s style, "Now what have you got to share with us today, Mr Cameron?" There are a lot of areas where the Tories get away with pretending their policies are more thought through than they are: this blog regularly berates their BMA-pleasing anti-patient health policies; few people realise that their education policies, because they have not properly learned from the Swedish experience, would involve huge deadweight capital costs (and considerable waste as a result) which will be paid for by cancelling many school building projects already in the pipeline; and today, Cameron as good as admitted that he would put up taxes. I don't suppose Cameron is volunteering for a Paxo grilling any time soon.

Gordon's New Year promise

The Prime Minister was on fairly good form on the Andrew Marr show this morning, once he got away from sounding like the former Chancellor talking about the economy. He was particularly good when he upstaged Marr's cynicism over hospital cleanliness by clearly describing the government's plan to address the problem. But he was less convincing when he started trying to set himself up as the politician with the right long-term solutions. As Matthew Parris suggested in an insightful piece in yesterday's Times, what the government now needs is to demonstrate competence in a number of areas - hospital cleanliness is probably one. Brown should set his more able ministers the task of sorting out perhaps ten to a dozen problems that really bug voters, over the next eighteen months. By all means, let's have the grand plans for 2020, but we need a set of challenging but achievable goals that the government can deliver by 2009, some very clear delivery plans and a tough line with recalcitrant civil servants. By doing so, the government can regain its reputation for competence - and the narrower Tory poll leads at the end of 2007 suggest this is not as hard as some commentators seem to think - as well as exposing the shallowness of the Tory strategy which is all about 'leaving it to the professionals' to decide whether or not they want to cut waiting lists.