"There we have it. An Englishman speaking to a Scot. Thank you and goodbye"

 

The first Andrew Marr Show of the year included an interview with Boris Johnson. 

I'm about to watch the programme, not having started it yet, but I'm already intrigued by this tweet from Alastair Stewart:

Wonder what that was all about? 

Update: I'm getting more intrigued. Ex-Sky world affairs editor Tim Marshall is saying "Marr’s pay off line was odd - ‘An Englishman talking to a Scotsman’.  He seemed a little annoyed."

Further Update: Indeed he did. Here it is in context:

Boris Johnson: You should break out of your characteristic gloom, if I may say so Andrew. Things are very tough. We are going through a very tough period as a country, but I really think people should focus on the amazing fact this country has created a room temperature vaccine which can be used around the world and we now have freedoms that we haven't had for 50 years and there are lots of reasons to be very positive about this otherwise grim new year. 

Andrew Marr: An Englishman talking to a Scot. Boris Johnson, thank you for coming in.

P.S. There were fewer interruptions this time, compared to the famous 1 December 2019 interruptathon which saw Andrew interrupt Boris 91 times. Today there were only 52 interruptions. 

Rob liked it:

Rob Burley: According to Twitter Andrew Marr interrupted the PM too much. Also too little. In reality, I thought it was a suitably tough, polite and fair interview.

P.P.S.  All these interruptions must cause BBC programme editors a few headaches. The World This Weekend played a 30-second clip of Boris Johnson saying something important but along with Boris's words came all those distracting noises from Andrew Marr. We got 'OK', 'So', OK, what might...what might tougher be? What might tougher be?', 'Sure' and 'A...' - and that was one of his quieter passages.