Emma Barnett's Radio 5 Live show a couple of days ago discussed (among other things) those calls for a second referendum and during the course of the programme she interviewed a couple of politicians - pro-People's Vote Conservative Guto Bebb and pro-Citizens' Assembly Labour MP Stella Creasy - plus businessman and pro-Brexit campaign leader Richard Tice. Mr. Bebb and Mr. Tice specifically discussed the second referendum question. Now can you guess which interviewee got interrupted the most?
Well, resurrecting my old interruption coefficients again (where the number of interruptions is divided by the length of the interview and where, by and large, the higher the number the tougher the interview, and where the average is 0.7), what resulted was the following set of figures:
Guto Bebb:
Interview length: 5m 24s
5 interruptions
I.C.= 1.0
Richard Tice:
Interview length: 6m 24s
22 interruptions
I.C. = 3.5
Stella Creasy:
Interview length: 5m 52s
4 interruptions
I.C.= 0.7
3.5 is a rare figure. It's one of the highest I've ever recorded. The intensity of Emma Barnett's interrupting of Richard Tice was, therefore, very extreme - even by the standards of BBC interviewers like John Humphrys or Andrew Neil.
The respective interviews begin at 23.24, 28.53 and 2.14.03 on BBC Sounds.
Incidentally, whilst listening to some of the calls on the same subject I heard Emma recalling that very interview and saying:
When I was talking to Richard Tice earlier....he said that people like him who voted to leave wouldn't even vote if that was put there, that Remain shouldn't even be an option anymore. It should be about the terms of the deal.
Well, no he didn't say that. He said that Remain should be an option.
The question should be 'Remain, or leave on WTO terms?'.....If it was 'May's deal, or Remain?; we Leavers would boycott the whole thing.
Quality broadcasting, eh!
