He has no problem, he says – this is clearly, to use his own word, “tosh” –
with the sort of interviewing that takes the form of “an agreeable
conversation” where the Prime Minister or Chancellor is allowed to say
whatever he likes: “Although I used to find it incredibly frustrating when I
did On the Record and Frost came on before that and they got the biggest
interviews, almost always.” You think it was an extension of public
relations? “Well, that’s being a bit unkind, but it is, sort of.”
The most common complaint about the Today programme, he says, is that
politicians never answer the question, so what is the point in having them
on. Humphrys’ view is that a politician’s very inability to respond to a
reasonable question reveals something about his or her character. He
mentions a particular woman politician – “I’m not going to use names because
I can’t, but everybody knows the particular minister – you only have to say
her name and every editor and presenter would say ‘Oh God’ because of the
way she handled interviews.
“It’s not only women, but this particular one treats the interviewer
like an idiot and by extension treats the audience like an idiot, and the
effect on her is immensely damaging. Patronising. ‘Look, I really have
answered the question’ – ‘No you haven’t, so let me ask it again.’ What
they’re doing is deliberately not answering the question and they’re
fighting off every attempt on your part to learn a bit more about them and
their approach – in a way that somebody like Thatcher, for instance, never
did.”
Before we get on to Baroness Thatcher, I try my damndest to get Humphrys to
reveal the name. My guess is Harriet Harman because of the interview she did
as Social Security Secretary (1997-1998) when she refused at least 13 times
to answer questions put to her by Humphrys after a leaked government
document revealed plans for sweeping cuts in disability benefits. But when I
ask him directly he says: “I’m not giving you a name – no, no, I’m really
not – but, actually, no, I wasn’t thinking of Harriet Harman.”
He has had a number of journalistic heroes over the years. Brian Redhead,
whom he joined on the Today programme, was a “superb interviewer” –
he rolls out the word “sooopurb” sounding very Welsh – “the best all-round
broadcaster the BBC’s ever had. At his peak, he was my role model. And to be
sitting next to Brian Redhead! My God, I couldn’t get over it. Brian Walden
was another kind of hero, quite different, but also superb.” Charles
Wheeler, the BBC’s longest-serving foreign correspondent (whose barrister
daughter, Marina, is married to Boris Johnson), is up there, too.
Wheeler’s name comes up in the context of Mrs T – “I don’t know whether
Charles will thank me for telling this story…” Do go on. “It was when she
was doing her Iron Lady thing and made that extraordinary trip to Moscow. A
British prime minister going to the heart of the communist enemy’s camp –
you know – and they came out in their thousands. She’d left London at four
in the morning, flown here and there, meetings, doing all those walkabouts.
She was making history and Charles and I were both waiting to interview her
at the British Embassy.
“It must have been about midnight when she came into the room, walked straight
up to Charles – ignored me totally – and you could see the electricity
flowing. Charles is a man who holds a certain appeal to women – always has
done anyway – and you could see the sparks bouncing between them. They might
almost have been making love. It was wonderful and I just sat there going,
‘Wow!’” Did you say anything to him afterwards? “God no! He was one of my
heroes. I was intimidated by him.”
He was also intimidated by the lady herself. This was pre-Today, in the
years when he was a foreign correspondent and he was keenly aware that there
were big gaps in his political knowledge: “I’d never worked in Westminster,
I wasn’t part of that scene... She had a fearsome reputation obviously and
she was, indeed, terrifying. She really did have that aura of power around
her.”
Can you convey that to me? “The way she looked at you was interesting, because
once you started the interview, she would not look into your eyes but at a
point in the middle of your forehead and she would talk to you like this
[gazing at my forehead] ‘I really think, Mr Humphrys, that was a very
foolish question.’ Oh…” he almost shudders, “she was just terrifying and
took me apart. Oh yes, absolutely. It doesn’t help if you begin the
interview scared of the person you’re interviewing because you will blow
it.”
All these references to Humphrys being terrified and intimidated go along with
his anxiety to prove that he is not as aggressive as his reputation. Being a
clever chap, he is probably aware that humanising himself by displaying his
own vulnerabilities might make for a more sympathetic portrait. There is
something else going on here, too. One of his more interesting questions to
me was whether I thought he was still a bully, and I pointed out his first
words when I arrived at the Hammersmith home he shares with his partner,
Valerie Sanderson – a News 24 presenter – and their
eight-year-old son Owen. He had asked me how I was and I said “Good,
thanks.” “Oh,” he said. “You’ve obviously not read my books [on the abuses
of the English language]. I hate that Americanism.” I retorted that this
response was, in fact, an Australianism and a good-natured wrangle ensued.
But if I were a different sort of personality might this “welcome”, at the
very least, not have been almost guaranteed to put one off one’s stride? He
says that as a reader of my pieces (another adroit ego-massaging touch), and
having spoken on the phone, he knew that I was not the timid type. But the
longer we spoke around the table of his Country Living kitchen, the
more biddable he became. At one point, when he had got up to answer his
phone for the third time, I said crossly: “Could you please turn it off, you
naughty boy,” and he meekly replied: “I will.”
Bob Humphrys, one of John’s three siblings (the youngest, Christine, died when
he was four), gave a joint interview back in 1995 and talked about how they
had recently spent a couple of weekends together, “talking about how our
background has made us what we are today. Occasionally I become very morose
and introverted, and John revealed he feels the same way.”
When I asked him what his brother meant by this, Humphrys said he had no idea.
But, as he admits, he has a shockingly bad memory. On the telephone, he
confessed that he had recently forgotten the name of one of his guests on
the Today programme and had an awkward moment trying to cover it up. “I
do not have a very good memory,” he said, “which is one of the reasons why I
try not to tell lies.”
